Bangkok--27 Sep--Moody's Moody's Investors Service says -- in a new report -- that there has not been a default by a Moody's-rated issuer in the Asia-Pacific region since 2003. The report, entitled Default and Recovery Rates of Asia-Pacific Corporate Bond and Loan Issuers, Excluding Japan, 1990 -1H2007, examines the historical credit experience of Asian-Pacific issuers. "Most of the region's defaults took place during or shortly after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998," says Jennifer Tennant, a Moody's Associate Analyst and author of the report. "In recent years, Asia Pacific has experienced few defaults; in fact, there has not been a rated corporate default since 2003." "Default rates in the Asia-Pacific region have been moderately higher than their global counterparts in all rating categories at Baa and below," says Tennant. "However, the rating distributions of these two groups differ significantly, with the Asia-Pacific region having a greater share of higher-rated corporate bond and loan issuers, both overall and within the speculative-grade categories. As a result, after aggregating across all rated issuers, historical default rates were actually lower in Asia Pacific than globally," adds Tennant. The Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) component of Moody's rated corporate universe has expanded dramatically over the past 17 years, from 66 rated bond and loan issuers to 352 issuers, while the share of speculative-grade issuers increased from virtually zero to almost one quarter of the total. Copies of the report can be found at www.moodys.com