2010-02-27

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services currently rates 123 sovereign governments (Publication date: 25-Feb-2010) and has established transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessments for each country (Poland, A/Stable/A-1, A-/Stable/A-2, A+) with a rated sovereign, as shown in the table below. A T&C assessment is the rating associated with the likelihood of the sovereign restricting nonsovereign access to foreign exchange needed for debt service. For most countries, Standard & Poor's analysis concludes that this risk is less than the risk of sovereign default on foreign-currency obligations; thus, most T&C assessments exceed the sovereign foreign currency rating. A nonsovereign entity can be rated as high as the T&C assessment if its stress-tested operating and financial characteristics support the higher rating. For more information, please see "Corporate And Counterparty Credit Ratings That Exceed The Sovereign?s Rating," published monthly on RatingsDirect.

Also included below are recovery ratings for selected sovereigns. Standard & Poor's sovereign foreign currency recovery ratings reflect its opinion on the extent to which a sovereign government will be able and willing to repay nonofficial foreign-currency debtholders post-default. For historical information on all of these ratings and assessments, please see "Sovereign Rating and Country T&C Assessment Histories," published monthly on RatingsDirect.