(Guardian, Curtis Williams, 9.Jul.2019) — Trinidad and Tobago has suffered a downgrade in its sovereign ratings from credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s.
In its update on this country, S&P said the decision to downgrade T&T was based on lower-than-expected energy production and economic growth which it expects to weaken the government’s revenue base and delay its plans to balance the budget by fiscal year 2020-2021.
In its overview S&P said: “At the same time, institutional reforms to strengthen revenue collection and improve the provision of timely economic data have taken longer than expected, and we do not expect to see material dividends from these reforms in the near term.”
It said these factors weaken the country’s resilience against external shocks.
“As a result, we are lowering our long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Trinidad and Tobago to ‘BBB’; from ‘BBB+’; and are affirming our short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings at ‘A-’
It added that it was also revising down its transfer and convertibility assessment to ‘BBB+’ from ‘A’.
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