* Expects debt-GDP ratio to rise over coming years
* Bond market depth, light interest burden offsets risk
By Umesh Desai
HONG KONG, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Japan's fiscal burden is expected to increase over fhe coming years but risks to its credit ratings are being offset by a strong external balance sheet, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday.
Japan's government last month approved a record budget for the fiscal year starting April that will inflate the country's debt by $484 billion, and concerns about increased supplies have hurt long dated bonds and steepened the yield curve.
"With the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratio which continues to increase, there are fiscal issues which weigh on Japan's ratings," James McCormack, head of Asia sovereign ratings at Fitch, told Reuters an interview.
"But it is not absolutely urgent (to address these issues). There is no funding or financing crisis."
McCormack said the government's plan to issue 44.3 trillion yen ($480.1 billion) in new debt in fiscal 2010/11 starting in April was within the agency's forecast of around 49 trillion yen.
In November, Fitch warned it would review its AA-minus rating on JGBs if there was a material increase in issuance above 44 trillion yen.
Fitch rates Japan's long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings at AA and AA-minus, respectively. The outlook on both ratings is stable.
JGB issuance to the market through regular auctions, including both new JGBs and refunding bonds, will hit a record 144.3 trillion yen in fiscal 2010/11, up 4.9 percent from this year's record high.
McCormack said the debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to rise, having already exceeded 200 percent, but reiterated any risk of a downgrade was being offset by the country's strong external position.
"Japan is not yet on the road to fiscal consolidation. We still see the debt-GDP ratio going up for the next couple of years and we don't see a meaningful fiscal consolidation programme," he said.
"The strengths of Japan are quite profound from a rating perspective. It is the world's largest net external creditor -- at end of 2009 it was about $2.5 trillion."
He also said Japan benefitted from the depth of its domestic debt market, which was a stable and a liquid source of financing its deficit, as well as high domestic savings and low interest rates.
The interest-revenue ratio of 10 percent compared favourably with AAA-rated U.S.A. and Canada and lower than Italy's, which has a AA-minus rating, but the rating weaknesses remained with no medium term fiscal consolidation strategy, McCormack said. ($1=92.27 Yen) (Editing by Kazunori Takada)