Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s on Monday cautioned that it could lower the sovereign ratings of countries like India, Japan and Malaysia, which ‘are still to come out of the economic meltdown of 2008’.

“The implications for sovereign creditworthiness in the Asia-Pacific would likely be more negative than previously experienced and a larger number of negative rating actions would follow,” S&P said in its report on Asia-Pacific Sovereigns.

“Fiscal capacities of Japan, India, Malaysia, Taiwan and New Zealand have shrunk relative to pre-2008 level,” it said, adding that these countries continue to bear the scars of the downturn.