Ratings agency Dagong said yesterday it was linking with United States and Russian partners to form an "independent" group to rival US-based agencies it claims have "proven inadequate".
The Chinese firm would set up the joint venture with Egan-Jones Ratings (EJR), based in Pennsylvania, and Russia's RusRating JSC, it said in an invitation for a press conference today to unveil the new company.
The joint venture, which is called Universal Credit Rating Group, would engage in global ratings affairs "as an entirely independent rating service provider", Dagong said in the letter.
"The current international credit rating system has proved inadequate to the task of producing responsible and reliable ratings," it said.
The three partners "do not represent the interest of any particular country or group" and Universal Credit will "provide impartial rating information to the global capital markets", it said.
US-based agencies Fitch, Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service - responsible for giving risk assessments to investors - were widely criticised for failing to warn about the impending global financial crisis in 2008.