S&P cuts Netherlands credit rating

Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded the Netherlands credit rating to AA + from AAA. Standard & Poor's / Flickr The rating agency affirmed the Dutch’s short-term rating at A-1+. The agency maintained its outlook for the country at stable. However, S&P noted that the country’s economic growth prospects were weaker than anticipated. "The real GDP per capita trend growth rate is persistently lower than that of peers at similarly high levels of economic development," S&P said. S&P said it expects the Netherlands’ GDP to contract by 1.2% in 2013, before growing by 0.5% in 2014 and slowly accelerating to 1.5% by 2016.