BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Fidan Babayeva – Trend:
Azerbaijan will meet the majority of its funding needs by tapping its sovereign wealth funds, Trend reports referring to Fitch Ratings.
Fitch Ratings expects the assets of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) to remain large, supporting creditworthiness.
“The coronavirus pandemic will push fiscal financing needs in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Black Sea region to record levels in 2020,” Fitch Ratings said.
“However, Fitch Ratings has Negative Outlooks on three of the eight sovereigns we rate in the region and two more have ‘B’ ratings that reflect high external financing needs and relatively low external buffers,” the report said.
“Median fiscal financing needs (general government deficit plus debt amortisations) for the CIS and Black Sea region will reach 10 percent of GDP in 2020, surpassing the peak of 7 percent of GDP in 2009 and 2015, respectively,” the report said.
In gross terms, Fitch forecasts financing needs at $152 billion or 7.4 percent of regional aggregate GDP.
Fitch expects official financing to cover the majority of total 2020 financing needs for Georgia and Uzbekistan, and external financing for Armenia and Ukraine.
Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine have IMF programmes.
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