WATCH: S&P Global says no immediate pressure on South Africa rating
JOHANNESBURG – Ratings agency S&P Global’s South Africa analyst said on Thursday there was no immediate pressure to change the country’s sovereign rating, despite weak economic growth and a growing debt burden.
Africa’s most industrialised economy is ranked at sub-investment grade by S&P and Fitch, two of the three main ratings firms, with recent downgrades linked mainly to the weak economy, bailouts for state firms and concerns about governance and corruption.
S&P Global’s long-term foreign-currency rating for South Africa’s debt is ‘BB’. Its stable outlook is one reason why analyst Gardner Rusike told a ratings conference that the rating was unlikely to change soon.
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“We don’t believe that there is immediate pressure to change the ratings in the near term,” Rusike said.
He added that S&P Global saw South Africa’s economic growth rate this year at below 1% and would look for measures to contain fiscal slippage in the finance ministry’s medium-term budget statement on Oct. 30.
Rusike said a recent government bailout to state power firm Eskom would put pressure on the budget deficit but that as a once-off event it did not pose a danger to the country’s sovereign rating.
Africa’s most industrialised economy is ranked at sub-investment grade by S&P and Fitch, two of the three main ratings firms, with recent downgrades linked mainly to the weak economy, bailouts for state firms and concerns about governance and corruption.
REUTERS
Source: iol.co.za
