Sri Lanka to be Rated by Moody's to Assess Sovereign Rating

06th August 2010, www.news360.lk

Sri Lanka has invited international rating firm Moody’s to assess the country’s “Sovereign Rating”.

Deputy Governor of the Central Bank K.G.D.D. Dheerasinghe citing reasons for the latest move said “We want to have ratings from all 3 top rating agencies”.

Accordingly Moody’s will join Fitch Ratings and S&P who is already assessing Sri Lanka’s sovereign rating.

A team from Moody’s will visit Sri Lanka next Monday to hold discussions with the Government officials including the Central Bankers.

Apart from the team from Moody’s, rating teams from both Fitch and S&P also will arrive in Sri Lanka during the next week to hold discussions with the Government officials.

All 3 are expected to come out with their annual country ratings on Sri Lanka following the planned meetings.

Sri Lanka is also looking to get a rating upgrade before it enters the international capital markets next month to raise US$ 1 billion via a sovereign bond.

An official of the Public debt department said “having a rating upgrade will help the country to be in a sound footing, when it start to raise dollars from the global market place”

In 2009 October Fitch upgraded Sri Lanka’s Sovereign rating to “B +” and announced the outlook as “stable” while S&P too in the same month upgraded the country rating to ‘B” and converted the outlook from “stable” to “positive”.

Report By: Prasanna C. Rodrigo, Email him on: news360@sltnet.lk