Russia and China have reached an agreement to create a joint credit rating agency and are working on a series of measures to make trade easier, Russia's finance minister said on Tuesday, a sign of growing ties between the neighbours, Reuters reported. Speaking during a trip to China, Anton Siluanov told journalists that the new rating agency would be modelled on existing rating agencies. "We would like (the agency's) ratings to be apolitical," Siluanov said in comments sent by the ministry's press service. The plan to create an agency in conjunction with China comes at time when Russia has shown signs of dissatisfaction with the three western agencies - Standard & Poor's Moody's and Fitch that dominate the ratings market. S&P cut Russia's sovereign rating to a notch above junk in late April, weeks after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.. Russian officials criticised what they regarded as a "politically motivated" downgrade - a claim that S&P denied.
