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Japanese Banks Receive Lower Credit Ratings VOA News 5 Feb 2002 17:13 UTC 
Two of the world's top credit-rating agencies have lowered their ratings for some Japanese banks, triggering fears of an imminent crisis in Japan's banking sector.
Standard and Poor's and Moody's said Japanese banks are suffering from mounting bad loans as corporate bankruptcies in Japan surge.
Last week, Japan's financial regulator said bad loans in Japan's major banks rose nine percent to $276 million in the six months to September 2001.
Japan's banks have been also hurt by insufficient earnings from lending and by capital losses in their stock holdings.
The cut in ratings has increased pressure on the Japanese government to inject capital in the banking sector and protect it from collapse. But Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said the government would intervene only if the situation reached a crisis point, which he defined as a drop in Tokyo's Nikkei index below 9,000 points.
The Nikkei fell 1.6 percent Tuesday to close to a 18-year low of 9,476 points.
Some information for this report provided by Bloomberg and Reuters.
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