Moody's cuts El Salvador forex govt bond rating

NEW YORK Nov 15 (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service said on Sunday it had downgraded El Salvador's foreign-currency government bond ratings to Ba1 with a negative outlook from Baa3.

The Central American nation's country ceiling for foreign-currency bank deposits was also cut to Ba1 with a negative outlook from Baa3.

"Since last year, El Salvador has been subject to severe shocks that have exposed underlying vulnerabilities associated with its condition as a small open economy with a high dependence on the U.S. and a relatively limited degree of diversification," said Moody's Vice President Mauro Leos, regional credit officer for Latin America, in a press release.

The coffee-producing country's main income source is the money from Salvadoreans living abroad. Remittances by migrant workers to relatives back home fell 10 percent in the first 10 months of 2009, compared with the same period a year ago, according to central bank data. (Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz; Editing by Jan Paschal)