National Ratings

CI's national ratings provide an opinion as to the ability and willingness of obligors to meet financial commitments either in general (an issuer credit rating) or with respect to a specific debt instrument (an issue credit rating) relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.

CI's national rating scale for a given country is not directly comparable to any other CI credit rating scale, national or international. The country-specific nature of CI's national ratings is captured by the addition of a two-letter prefix to the credit rating to denote the country (for example, omAAA for Oman).

Under CI's national rating methodology, the strongest credit in the country is normally assigned the rating "xxAAA", and all other issuers or issues are assigned ratings relative to that strongest credit. As national ratings provide an ordinal ranking of creditworthiness in a specific country, a highly rated issuer or issue on a national rating scale might still be a significant credit risk in an absolute sense.

The rating scales for national ratings are shown below. Short-term ratings assess the time period up to one year.

National Long-Term Credit Ratings

xxAAA	The highest credit quality in a given country. Strongest capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxAA	Very high credit quality in a given country. Very strong capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxA	High credit quality in a given country. Strong capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxBBB	Moderate credit quality in a given country. Moderate capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxBB	Moderately weak credit quality in a given country. Limited capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxB	Weak credit quality in a given country. Weak capacity for timely fulfilment of financial obligations relative to other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxC	Very weak credit quality in a given country. There is considerable uncertainty as to timely repayment of financial obligations relative to other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxRS	Regulatory supervision (this rating is assigned to financial institutions only). The obligor is under the regulatory supervision of the authorities due to its weak financial condition. The likelihood of default is extremely high without continued external support.
xxSD	Selective default. The obligor has failed to service one or more financial obligations but CI believes that the default will be restricted in scope and that the obligor will continue honouring other financial commitments in a timely manner.
xxD	The obligor has defaulted on all, or nearly all, of its financial obligations.

National Short-Term Credit Ratings

xxA1	Strongest capacity for timely repayment of financial obligations in the short term relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country. Issuers or issues with a particularly strong relative credit profile have a "+" affixed to the rating.
xxA2	Good capacity for timely repayment relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxA3	Moderate capacity for timely repayment relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxB	Weak capacity for timely repayment relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxC	Very weak capacity for timely repayment relative to all other issuers or issues in the same country.
xxRS	Regulatory supervision (this rating is assigned to financial institutions only). The obligor is under the regulatory supervision of the authorities due to its weak financial condition. The likelihood of default is extremely high without continued external support.
xxSD	Selective default. The obligor has failed to service one or more financial obligations but CI believes that the default will be restricted in scope and that the obligor will continue honouring other financial commitments in a timely manner.
xxD	The obligor has defaulted on all, or nearly all, of its financial obligations.

CI Ratings appends "+" and "-" signs to national scale long-term credit ratings in the categories from 'xxAA' to 'xxC' to indicate that the strength of a particular issuer or issue is, respectively, slightly greater or less than that of similarly rated peers.

Outlook - expectations of improvement, no change or deterioration in a rating over the 12 months following its publication are denoted Positive, Stable or Negative.