Pretoria - Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe, says the dedicated work of Team South Africa – including government, business and labour -- is ensuring that the country avoids a junk status rating.
Briefing media in Pretoria on Thursday after Cabinet’s regular meeting this week, the Minister said government has noted the reviews by international rating agencies -- Fitch, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s -- which reaffirmed South Africa’s investment grade credit rating and maintained its stable outlook.
He said the rating reviews affirm the continuing work by government to turn the economy around and give the country the necessary space to continue implementing its intervention plans.
Fitch on Wednesday announced its decision to affirm South Africa’s long term foreign and local currency debt at ‘BBB-’ and ‘BBB’ respectively. On Friday, 3 June, S&P affirmed SA’s sovereign debt rating at one notch above junk, a move analysts and government have welcomed. The agency put SA’s long and short term ratings at ‘BBB-/A-3’ and ‘BBB+/A-2’ respectively. In May, Moody’s affirmed South Africa’s government bond long and short term ratings of Baa2 and P-2 respectively.
“South Africa is implementing programmes from the National Development Plan (NDP), which will ensure that the country remains an investment destination.
“This demonstrates that working together, we can reignite our economy, attract investment and create much-needed jobs for South Africans,” he said.
Even though South Africa’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 1.2% in the first quarter of 2016, according to figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), Minister Radebe said government is already implementing key interventions in the most affected sectors.
These include agriculture, transport, electricity and mining, which are being addressed through Operation Phakisa, to unblock the constraints to growth. - SAnews.gov.za
