"Although there was a month-on-month improvement, this was the result of several changes: two companies moved out of the SGL-4 category, which is the lowest speculative-grade liquidity score, while only one company was added," says Laura Acres, a Moody's Senior Vice President.

"While four ratings were assigned, two were withdrawn, so the number of companies in the index rose to 105 from 103," says Acres.

Acres was speaking on the release of Moody's latest report on the index, entitled "Asian Liquidity Stress Index."

"At the same time, the index -- which increases when speculative-grade liquidity appears to decrease -- remains elevated, but is also far from its record high of 37% recorded in Oct-Dec 2008, the height of the global financial crisis," says Acres.

The new report notes that the liquidity sub-index for Chinese speculative-grade companies fell to 31.4% in November from 32% in October. The Chinese property companies' liquidity sub-index also improved, falling to 31.3% from 34.5%.

However, both improvements were because of the addition of new ratings, which increased the base. At the same time, the sub-index for Indonesian companies remained unchanged at to 12%, which equates to three of the 25 companies in the index having a SGL-4 score.

Looking ahead, Oct-Dec 2012 is currently on track to be the first quarter since Apr-Jun 2011 where corporate family rating upgrades exceeded downgrades. The Oct-Nov period has seen four upgrades to corporate family ratings and three downgrades.

The report says that a very clear negative bias to ratings outlooks remains. Although, the percentage of speculative-grade companies with a negative outlook or on review for downgrade fell to 33.3% in November from 36.9% at end-October. There were six outlook changes in November: five were in a positive direction and only one was negative.

Moody's had assigned speculative-grade ratings to 105 issuers in Asia (excluding Japan and Australia) covering $44.5 billion of rated debt as at the end of November, up from $42.7 billion at the end of October.

Subscribers can access this report via this link: http://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Asian-Liquidity-Stress-Index-December-2012--PBC_147883NOTE TO JOURNALISTS ONLY: For more information, please call one of our global press information hotlines: London+44-20-7772-5456, New York+1-212-553-0376, Tokyo+813-5408-4110, Hong Kong+852-3758-1350, Sydney+61-2-9270-8141, Mexico City001-888-779-5833, São Paulo 0800-891-2518, or Buenos Aires0800-666-3506. You can also email us at mediarelations@moodys.com or visit our web site at www.moodys.com.

Laura Acres Senior Vice President Corporate Finance Group Moody'sInvestors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: (852) 3758 -1350 SUBSCRIBERS: (852) 3551-3077 Philipp L. Lotter MD - Corporate Finance Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: (852) 3758 -1350 SUBSCRIBERS: (65) 6398-8308 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: (852) 3758 -1350 SUBSCRIBERS: (852) 3551-3077 (C) 2012 Moody's Investors Service, Inc. and/or its licensors and affiliates (collectively, "MOODY'S"). All rights reserved.

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