Standard & Poor’s on Friday lowered Italy’s credit rating by one notch on concerns about weak growth and increasing debt while maintaining a stable outlook, AFP reported. S&P dropped Italy’s long and short-term sovereign credit rating to ‘BBB-/A-3’ from ‘BBB/A-2’, the ratings agency said in a statement. The agency revised its gross domestic product growth estimates for Italy over the 2014-2017 forecast horizon down to 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively, from 1.0% and 1.9%. “Persistently low inflation and a difficult business environment continue to weigh on Italy’s economic prospects,” it said. S&P also revised its estimate of Italian public debt, seeing an increase of 80b euros by the end of 2017.
