(Bloomberg) -- Moody’s Investors Service lowered Hong Kong’s rating as a long-term issuer of debt by one notch on Monday, just months after Fitch Ratings took a similar action amid political protests.
Moody’s cited a degree of “inertia” characterizing the legislative and executive branches of government in the statement, as it lowered the rating to Aa3 from Aa2. The ratings agency also changed the outlook to “stable” from “negative.”
“The absence of tangible plans to address either the political or economic and social concerns of the Hong Kong population that have come to the fore in the past nine months may reflect weaker inherent institutional capacity than Moody’s had previously assessed,” the ratings agency wrote in a statement.
Hong Kong has been rocked by pro-democracy protests and clashes between demonstrators and the police which have broken out regularly since June. Fitch Ratings downgraded the city’s rating in September.