Zeti: BNM not worried about ‘junk status’

(Bernama) – Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is not concerned over the possible downgrade to “junk status” by Credit-Default-Swap (CDS) Traders as the downgrade was not by a ratings agency.

Its governor, Zeti Akhtar Aziz said the “junk status” is only how the markets tell their story and a similar thing occurred during the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis.

“However, a year after the financial crisis, we managed to prove to the world what can we do.

“We have to be firm so investors will look at how we assess the situation,” she said.

Standard & Poor’s has an A stable rating for Malaysia while Fitch Ratings upgraded its ratings to A stable.

The ringgit is pressured by highly volatile global developments in the United States, China and the Middle East.

At 5pm today, the ringgit was quoted at 4.4160/4240 versus the US dollar.

“The important thing is for the economy to have the strength and resilience to ride it out.

“However, we are not facing any pressure to increase interest rates as the current level is accommodative and supportive of economic activities,” she said, reiterating BNM’s GDP growth outlook of 4.5%-5% for 2015.

In the latest monetary policy statement, the central bank decided to maintain the overnight policy rate at 3.25%.

Zeti said the central bank was seeing steady growth in credit, which meant that the challenging environment had not hampered borrowings from the financial system to support businesses especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises which have been experiencing double-digit growth.

She also said it would not be possible to fix the exchange rate given the highly dynamic environment.

“We do not have any particular level because this is a dynamic environment, therefore, where other currencies are also adjusting, we cannot keep ours at one specific level because it will be misaligned,” Zeti added.