Brazil, Colombia, Peru may see upgrades

By Herbert Lash

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Latin America has withstood economic shocks so well during the global crisis that Brazil, Colombia and Peru could see their credit ratings raised to investment grade within 12 months, Mauro Leos, a senior credit officer at Moody's Investors Service, said on Wednesday.

Moody's already has lifted the sovereign credit ratings of other countries in Latin America during the worldwide downturn -- Uruguay in January and Chile in March.

Moody's also put Chile on positive outlook for another boost to its investment grade rating, the region's highest, Leos told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit in New York.

When Latin America was booming during the record surge in commodity prices, Moody's took a cautious stance knowing that the good times would not last forever, said Leos, who oversees credit ratings for 12 Latin American countries.

"Now we are acting counter-cyclical," he said. "We do not rule out the possibility that we are going to upgrade other countries," he said.

Moody's has based its thinking on how well the region, long prone to steep downturns when commodities prices went south or overvalued currencies blew up, has held up during the current crisis, which was sparked by a bust in the U.S. housing market.

"There is resilience in the region. And the resilience has to do with the actions of the countries on the fiscal side, on the monetary side," Leos said.

Countries that could be upgraded are ones that are just below investment grade that have been doing better than expected, Leos said.