WASHINGTON, Feb 12: The credit rating agencies — Moody’s and the Standard and Poor — on Monday expressed their continued faith in Pakistan’s economic reform package in their meetings with Pakistan’s Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The Standard and Poor in January announced that Pakistan’s foreign currency ratings are “B-(minus)/Stable/B” and Moody’s is determined that Pakistan’s economic outlook became positive from negative.

Mr Aziz who met officials of both ratings agencies on Monday in New York told Dawn that the purpose of his visit was to assess that according to the ratings of these agencies how much progress Pakistan had made since January. “They agreed that since then much progress has been made by Pakistan and they would favourably review the ratings.” Aziz said.

In its ratings review Moody’s said: “The outlook for Pakistan’s ratings was raised to stable from negative in October 2001. Pakistan’s fiscal and external payment pressures are being softened now, thanks partly to the debt relief, increased aid, the opening of international trade channels following the Pakistan government’s cooperation with the US-led military operation in Afghanistan. Economic reforms undertaken by the military government which resulted in the unprecedented and successful completion of last year’s IMF stand-by programme have also secured additional concessional financing from the IMF and the World Bank.”

The Standard and Poor said that its revised improved ratings for Pakistan were supported by “—improved relations with external and official creditors, Pakistan’s relations with major bilateral creditors have improved significantly in the past few months.”