Moody’s downgrades Zambia

Moody’s Investors Service said it downgraded Zambia's long-term issuer ratings to Caa1 from B3 and maintained a stable outlook.

The downgrade reflects ongoing fiscal consolidation challenges, pointing to an increasing government debt burden, the agency said.

Moody’s said these developments are contrary to its previous expectations that the debt burden would stabilize.

The agency also said that despite higher copper prices until recently, liquidity and external vulnerability risks are rising, reflecting larger gross funding needs than Moody's previously estimated, higher public external debt and lower foreign exchange reserves buffers, trends which the agency said it does not expect to reverse.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.