British Columbia is holding on to its AAA credit rating from Moody's Investors Service. The credit rating agency is not, however, upgrading the province’s rating outlook from negative to stable.
The May 9 report from Moody’s cited B.C.’s “strong fiscal flexibility” and “track record of prudent fiscal management” as reasons for the AAA credit rating — the highest the company assigns.
The credit rating agency downgraded B.C.’s outlook from stable to negative in December 2012, citing increased debt and lower-than-anticipated natural gas revenues.
B.C.’s provincial debt is forecast at about $65 billion in 2014-2015.
“The negative outlook reflects the risks to the province’s ability to reverse the recent accumulation in debt given a softened economic, weaker commodity prices and continued expense pressures,” the latest report stated.
B.C. has received stable outlook ratings from Dominion Bonds, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's within the past year.
