Country Rating Firm Puts U.S. on Watch List.

• Position: Compagnie d'Assurance Pour le Commerce Exterieur - Brief Article

The U.S. and Japan, the world's largest economies, are under closer scrutiny these days from a firm that issues "country ratings." The Coface Group, a French company that handles export credit insurance and commercial risk management, this summer put both countries on a "rating watch" with negative implications, along with Taiwan and Brazil.

Country ratings issued by Coface measure the average default risk on corporate payments in a given country, and indicate to what extent a company's financial commitments are affected by the local business, financial and political outlook. The company says it continuously monitors 140 countries using a spectrum of indicators, including; political factors; risk of currency shortage and devaluation; ability to meet financial commitments abroad; risk of a systemic crisis in the banking sector; cyclical risk; and payment behavior for short-term transactions.

Coface posts regular updates to these country ratings, which are available free of charge at www.cofacerating.com corn. Coface's @rating suite of products is a universal benchmark that combines both country rating and company rating to provide a comprehensive view of the transaction risk associated with a particular company.

While the U.S. and Japan currently have a top Al rating, Coface observed that [U.S.] company payment behavior is deteriorating in line with the overall economic slowdown. The Federal Reserve's successive interest rate reductions have not boosted capital...