S&P lowers Hong Kong rating to AA+ following China downgrade

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Standard and Poor's lowered Hong Kong's long-term rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday following its earlier downgrade of China's sovereign rating."We see very strong institutional and political linkages between China and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. "Following the earlier downgrade of the sovereign credit rating on China, we are lowering the rating on Hong Kong to reflect potential spillover risks to the SAR should deleveraging in China prove to be more disruptive than we currently expect," S&P said in a statement. The rating agency downgraded China from AA- to A+ on Thursday, citing debt risk. S&P changed Hong Kong's outlook to stable from negative on Friday, and said it expected Hong Kong to "maintain its strong credit metrics across the board in the next two to three years". (Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by Eric Meijer)