The Premier Colin Barnett has labelled the loss of the state's prized triple A credit rating as more of a political embarrassment than a financial concern.

Last week, ratings agency Standard and Poor's lowered WA's long-term investment ranking to double A plus over concerns the state was not doing enough to combat rising debt levels.

Its debt is predicted to rise to $22 billion over the 2013/14 financial year and it will be more than $28 billion by the 2016/17 financial year.

This will be a sevenfold increase from 2008 when debt was $3.6 billion.

The ratings downgrade triggered a swift response from the Premier who immediately flagged asset sales and a delay on infrastructure spending as ways to reduce debt.

He has now gone a step further, flagging the potential shut-down of some projects.

"What we will do, to address debt itself, we'll have a review of all the capital works expenditure," he said.

"It won't be dramatic changes, but there will be changes," Mr Barnett said on Fairfax radio.

"Some projects might slide out in time, other projects may be cancelled or cut back."

On Fairfax Radio today, Mr Barnett said the credit rating downgrade was more of an embarrassment than a financial issue.

"The downgrading from AAA to AA+ is more of a political embarrassment than anything else," he said.

"The financial implications aren't great so it's more political and, to some extent, a confidence issue."