Could the IMF steady SA’s trembling boots?
We have to face up to the hard choices and take the medicine, no matter what
These are strange and unpredictable times. For the first time ever and as a result of the economic stranglehold that the Covid-19 pandemic has on markets, the US has been downgraded by credit ratings agency Standard and Poor’s, from its top-notch AAA rating to AA+ with a negative outlook.
Across the pond, Britain’s sovereign debt rating was cut to AA- by Fitch, bringing it to the same level as Belgium and the Czech Republic, as the country faces its potentially deepest recession. And on Friday night SA, unsurprisingly, was finally tipped out of investment grade into junk by Moody’s Investors Service. A move which, as finance minister Tito Mboweni so graphically put it, has us trembling in our boots as we imagine what might be in the coming weeks and months. “To say we are concerned ... is an understatement.”..
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