Economy | - Part 87

Drop in oil prices to impact Angolan public finances

Business Monitor International (BMI) projected real GDP growth in Angola to decelerate from 4.1% in 2014 to 3.8% in 2015, assuming an average global oil price of $55 per barrel. It said that the non-oil economy has been the main engine of activity in recent years, but most of the growth has been indirectly underpinned by oil revenues channelled through government spending. As such, it expected cuts in government spending on the back of lower…

Moody’s assigns (P)B1 to Côte d’Ivoire

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Moody’s Investors Service, Inc. (Moody’s) has assigned a provisional long-term (P)B1 rating to the Government of Côte d’Ivoire’s forthcoming bond issue. The senior unsecured bond will rank pari passu with all of Côte d’Ivoire’s current and future senior unsecured debt. The rating is aligned with Côte d’Ivoire’s long-term issuer rating of B1. Moody’s currently has a positive outlook on Côte d’Ivoire’s issuer rating. The provisional (P)B1 rating is based on the preliminary prospectus dated 13…

Nigeria: election delay heightens risks

Posted on by The Editorial Team

On Saturday, 7 February, the Nigerian presidential election was officially postponed from 14 February to 28 March due to security concerns. The opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has called this a “setback for democracy”. They claim that the incumbent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) may be using the terrorist insurgency in the Northeast as an excuse to delay an election they believe they cannot win.With this election set to be the closest since the end…

S&P may reduce Nigeria Credit Ratings

Posted on by The Editorial Team

S&P may cuts Nigeria Credit RatingsStandard & Poor’s Ratings Services put Nigeria’s credit ratings on watch for potential downgrade following the fall in oil prices and continued political instability according to S&P’s analysts led by Ravi Bhatia wrote in the statement: “Political risks also remain significant”. Nigeria is the latest country that S&P has docked for reasons related to oil. Its BB-rating is three notches below investment-grade territory. In light of the months long oil slump,…

Ghana to grow by 5.8% in 2015

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Business Monitor International anticipated that the Ghanaian cedi would resume its depreciation in the coming three to six months after stabilizing during the last months of 2014. It attributed the expected depreciation of the cedi to the strengthening US dollar, wide current account deficit and uncertainty about an agreement between the International Monetary Fund and the Ghanaian authorities. It forecast the current account deficit to widen from 9.2% of GDP in 2014 to 11.9% of…

Net private capital inflows to decrease by 2% in 2015

Posted on by The Editorial Team

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) projected net private capital inflows to emerging markets at $1,064bn in 2015, constituting a decrease of 2.2% from $1,088bn in 2014 and a drop of $94bn from its forecast in October. It attributed the decline to the expected increase of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy rate and to the relative slow growth in emerging markets. It said that lower oil prices would stimulate global growth, but it noted that…

2015 outlook commodity for oil, copper, gold and aluminium

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Crude oil prices to decline by 42% in 2015The crude oil market in 2015 is expected to be more volatile and more uncertain than it was in 2014. In 2014, the Bloomberg Brent Crude Oil Total Return Sub-Index decreased by 47.6%, while the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude Oil Sub-index dropped by 41.7% last year.Crude oil prices are expected to remain low through 2015 until the excess supply in the market is corrected. It is forecast to…

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