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Healing qualities: Azerbaijan’s economy is slowly finding its feet, in response |
Risk experts are still downgrading Azerbaijan in response to disappointing economic indicators, highlighting the effects of depressed oil prices and a lack of clarity from the government concerning its policymaking.
As of mid-May, Azerbaijan’s risk score has fallen to 39.4 out of a possible 100 points in Euromoney’s country risk survey – a long-term slide that has seen the country lose almost nine points since 2010.
This has pushed Azerbaijan below Gabon and Guatemala to 87th in the global rankings of 186 countries, deeper into the fourth of five tiered groups synonymous with a B- to BB+ credit rating, and forcing open a bigger gap in risk-terms to Russia (ranking 70th) and Kazakhstan (72nd).
Azerbaijan is rated an equivalent Ba1/BB+ credit by Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, but all three agencies put their ratings on a negative watch last year.
Surely now is the time to act.
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