Economy

ADDIS ABABA (Capital Markets in Africa) — Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”) has downgraded the long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings of the Government of Ethiopia to B2 from B1 and placed the ratings on review for further downgrade. The downgrade to B2 reflects heightened external and government liquidity risks further aggravated by the coronavirus outbreak which has severely hit the economy’s foreign currency receipts, raised the government’s spending needs, and curtailed its financing options. Ethiopia…

Nairobi (Capital Markets of Nigeria) — Moody’s Investors Service, (“Moody’s”) has changed the outlook on the Government of Kenya’s ratings to negative from stable. Concurrently, Moody’s has affirmed Kenya’s B2 issuer and senior unsecured ratings. The negative outlook reflects the rising financing risks posed by Kenya’s large gross borrowing requirements, which include amortization of external bilateral debt and the need to refinance a large stock of short-term domestic debt, at a time when the fiscal…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) — Kenya’s inflation accelerated to 5.6% in April from a revised 5.5% in the previous month as food prices rose by double digits, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday in an emailed statement. Prices rose 0.9% in the month. Prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks, which make up a third of the inflation basket, climbed almost 12%. The transport index climbed to 5.4% even after the government cut gasoline…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — S&P Global Ratings cut South Africa deeper into junk territory amid concern the Covid-19 pandemic will send the economy into a sharp downturn. The rating firm downgraded the country’s long-term foreign-currency rating to BB-, three notches below investment-grade, from BB. South Africa’s cost of servicing the public debt will climb to about 6.5% of gross domestic product by 2023, S&P said Wednesday. The South African Treasury said it’s “disappointed”…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said the South African economy could contract as much as 6.4% this year due to the coronavirus outbreak and the budget deficit could swell to more than 10% of gross domestic product. In a recording of a conference call with clients of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Mboweni said he expected the contraction to be deeper than the 5.8% forecast by the International Monetary Fund,…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”) has today affirmed Nigeria’s B2 long-term issuer ratings and senior unsecured rating and its (P)B2 senior unsecured MTN programme rating and maintained the negative outlook. The negative outlook continues to reflect the material downside risks to Nigeria’s creditworthiness identified when the outlook on the sovereign’s rating was changed to negative in December 2019. However, those risks have increased since then, exacerbated by the oil price…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) — Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”) has today affirmed the Government of Ghana’s long-term local and foreign currency issuer and foreign currency senior unsecured bond ratings at B3 and changed the outlook to negative from positive. Moody’s has concurrently affirmed the local and foreign currency senior unsecured MTN ratings at (P)B3 and the rating of the bond enhanced by a partial guarantee from the International Development Association (IDA, Aaa stable) at…