Indonesia on Thursday recovered its coveted investment grade status from Fitch Ratings, the first of the three major ratings agencies poised to give the emerging economy a lift.

The move crowns nearly a decade of steady economic improvement in Southeast Asia's largest economy, which had been downgraded to junk status during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, when the 32-year rule of strongman Suharto came to an end.

Fitch raised Indonesia's long-term foreign-currency and local-currency ratings by one notch to BBB-minus, the first rung of the 10-step investment scale and on par with India, Colombia and Morocco. It said the outlook on the ratings was stable.