China's vice minister of finance Shi Yaobin has fired back at rating agencies shortly after the latter downgraded the country's credit outlook.
In a statement, the vice minister said that [the agencies'] "worries over the restructuring of the economy, the debt problem with the real economy, the reform of state-owned enterprises and financial risks [are] unnecessary."
The minister's disapproval comes after Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook for China to negative. In a report from The Wall Street Journal, S&P noted that "economic and financial risks to the Chinese government's creditworthiness are gradually increasing."
The firm added that China's efforts to fix its economic woes are moving slower that they had expected, prompting them to give a sour outlook for the country.
S&P is the second agency to downgrade China's credit rating in a span of one month, following Moody's decision on March 2 to give the country a negative credit grade as well. Moody's lowered outlook comes on the back of China's soaring debt.
The agency also doubted the Chinese government's "ability to enact reforms just days before leaders gather to approve a five-year road map for the economy," according to a Bloomberg report.
Unsurprisingly, the lowered ratings raised some eyebrows.
"S&P's and Moody's have overestimated the difficulties China is facing, while underestimating its ability to push forward reforms and cope with risks," said the vice minister in a statement.
The government official further cited China's 6.9-percent growth rate over the past 12 months as a major contribution to the world's economic progress.
"As the world's second largest economy and the top trading nation, China has been a growth engine and a stabilizer since the outbreak of the international financial crisis," said Shi.
The vice minister is not the only Chinese official to criticize rating agencies. Finance minister Lou Jiwei said recently that he "does not care" about Moody's downgrade, citing the agency's inability to revise Greece's credit outlook despite the country's financial troubles.