Zambia driven towards IMF
Selloff puts pressure on country to stabilise its finances
The emerging-market selloff is piling pressure on Zambia to stabilise its finances and strike a bailout deal with the IMF. The copper producer’s eurobonds were struggling even before sentiment towards developing nations turned bearish around mid-April as the dollar strengthened and US-China trade tension worsened. Those factors, along with contagion from Turkey’s financial crisis, have made the pain even more acute. Zambia’s eurobonds have lost 10% in August, more than any of the 75 countries in the Bloomberg Barclays emerging markets USD sovereign bond index. That has extended their decline to 23% in 2018 and sent spreads over US treasuries soaring to more than 1,000 basis points. The nation’s creditworthiness has been downgraded twice in the past month. S&P Global Ratings cut the foreign-currency rating to B-, six steps into junk territory, last week, saying that the budget deficit and pace of debt accumulation would be higher than it previously forecast. Moody’s Investors Service...
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