International rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has confirmed the long-term rating of Ukraine, both for national and foreign currencies. The rating is confirmed at «В-/В», with stable forecast for both national and foreign currencies.
S&P analysts underline that confirming the ratings reflects the progress achieved in the macroeconomic situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian GDP is expected to grow by 1,9% this year.
Standard & Poor’s expert community assumes that the following years are going to be more productive economics-wise. They think that the national GDP of Ukraine may well grow all the way up to 2,8%, 3%, and 3,2% in 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively. All of that is happening against the fact that the rating agency predicted a serious debt problem for Kiev in late 2016. Back then, the agency also warned that 2019 might become a year of serious challenges on top of being the year of the next presidential election in Ukraine. The thing is that Ukraine is due to pay a lot of their external debt in 2019.
For those of you who don’t know, restructuring the debt on the second half of 2015 gave the Ukrainian government just a little bit more time to handle the problem and try to manage the debt dynamics by improving the budget figures and implementing reforms to favor economic growth.
According to S&P estimates, the Ukrainian government’s net debt at the end of 2016 should have been around 76% of the national GDP. Back then, they expected the debt to grow by 3,6% a year on average. Relatively big debts imply planning the national budget with a glance at the primary surplus along with asking the IMF and other financial donors for help while sustaining GDP growth.
