Business
Africa economic growth real and sustainable – Institute of International Finance
For six of the countries — Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia — the report said total external debt declined from 62 percent of GDP in 2003 to 17 percent in 2011.
Creditworthiness
In South Africa, the picture has been muddier, but Africa’s largest economy continues to receive the bulk of the continent’s inward portfolio investments.
With attractive rates of return compared with those found in industrialized nations, investors have predominantly focused on buying sovereign bonds.
In another sign of the increased appetite for African government debt, Moody’s on Wednesday launched its first sovereign ratings for Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia, which all handily beat troubled Greece in the creditworthiness stakes.
Predicting that African governments would increasingly turn to markets to fund public programs, Moody’s gave Nigeria the highest rating of the trio, at BA3, just below investment grade.
The ratings judge how likely a country is to default on its debt and go a long way toward determining a government’s cost of borrowing.
