Fitch Group, which is a financial information service rating company, rated Ethiopia as “B” for long term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR).

The rating covered developments in economic performance, public and external debt ratios, governance indicators, and consideration of the agricultural and service sectors as well as other areas.

According to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs the rating by the company was based on the recognition Ethiopia outperformed its regional peers due to such factors as significant public investment in infrastructure.

Fitch looked in to the country’s long term as well as short term IDR and rated Ethiopia in both spectrums as “B”.

Nonetheless, the rating company did not hesitate to disclose Ethiopia is vulnerable to shocks. Yet it also said the key rating drivers for Ethiopia’s IDR reveal strong economic performance as well as improved public and external debt ratios since debt relief under HIPC in 2005-2007.

Fitch explained Ethiopia outperformed its regional peers for the significant public investments it made on infrastructure and the large agricultural and services sectors.  

The rating group furthered Ethiopia will continue to grow over the medium term at large for the untapped resources, including large hydro-electric potential the nation possess. It added its expectation for the Ethiopian real GDP growth for the year 2014 to be 9 percent and 8 percent for 2015.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs