CRI听力:Credit Rating, the Next Market China Competes for Say

In its latest credit rating on China's sovereign debt, US Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered its outlook for the country's creditworthiness to negative from stable. It follows a similar move by another American ratings agency Moody's.

A lower credit rating means higher borrowing costs because the borrower is deemed to carry a higher risk of default.

"It's hard to imagine that China, a leading creditor nation and a major capital exporter, is still trying to ensure the security of its assets based on the ratings made by its debtor."

Guan Jianzhong is Chairman of the Beijing-based Dagong Global Credit Rating.

"If we blindly worship or follow the so-called authoritative Western rating agencies, it's virtually embracing their ratings at the expense of the losses in the value of our assets. That's pathetic."

Guan's view is shared by former French Prime Minster, Dominique de Villepin, who made the comment at a recent forum on credit rating and investment.

"There's growing distrusts towards the rating agencies… The first one is the hegemony of the western finance and rating agencies. It means a lack of diversity and reliability. We see that the US banking sector had a big responsibility in the 2008 turmoil. We also see there is the monopoly of the 'big three' that failed to avoid the crisis and even made it worse."

But to break the monopoly is not easy.

According to reports, S&P, Moody's, and Fitch, all headquartered in the U.S., together control 95 percent of the world's ratings market.

Hans-Peter Egler, CEO of Switzerland-based Global Infrastructure Basel, or GIB, says innovation is the way to change the old order.

"You shouldn't think and do the same as everybody else because then you are irrelevant. As long as you are able to bring a new methodology to the table, and prove it's also a reliable methodology, then you'll be able to occupy a market's base. We take this momentum where there are new markets are establishing themselves are trying to have new approaches particularly in those markets which may spill over then to other markets."

GIB, together with Dagong Global Credit Rating, has just launched a global infrastructure credit rating methodology, which the two companies say is more comprehensive than the existing methodologies, monitoring a project from the very beginning of its design rather than merely focus on its operation.

For CRI, I'm Tu Yun.