$30-T funding opportunity awaits Asian credit markets, says S&P

Asian credit markets should help fill the funding gap for companies in the region, debt watcher Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said in a forum on Friday.   The opportunity is there to fill various projects in need of alternative funding sources, S&P president Douglas Peterson said on the sidelines of the 45th Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Governors annual meeting in Manila.   Between now and mid-2017, capital markets would need to finance more than $40 trillion of corporate borrowings in the world’s biggest economies, according to an S&P estimate.   About $30 trillion of that amount would have to be refinanced. A significant portion of the financing task in Asia is estimated at about $7 trillion in China and $6 trillion in Japan, the credit rating agency said.   “Coping with the huge demand for credit will be a challenge for banks and capital markets in the coming years,” Peterson said.   Policymakers should be able to shift surplus savings within the region to stimulate domestic demand and tackle global imbalances, the S&P boss noted.   "Given the stretched banking systems across the globe, alternative sources of financing will need to be to be found, and we believe that Asian credit markets–if developed further–have an opportunity to help fill the funding void,” he added. —VS, GMA News