Fixed Interests Podcast

Twelve Rated Sovereigns Have Applied for DSSI The G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) offers relief to 73 eligible low-income countries on official bilateral debt-service payments (principal and interest) due between May and December 2020.

This webpage offers a country-by-country accounting of DSSI participants and the amounts they owe to creditors, based on information from the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics (IDS) database.

This dashboard tracks measures that countries are rolling out in support of MSMEs in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) provides rapid financial assistance, which is available to all member countries facing an urgent balance of payments need.

The collapse in oil prices and the coronavirus shock is worsening the fiscal and external balances of sub-Saharan African oil producers, Fitch Ratings says.

Fitch Ratings has further reduced its oil price assumptions for 2020 and 2021 as the rapid spread of the coronavirus weakens the short-term global economic outlook and oil demand, resulting in very large oversupply.

The coronavirus pandemic, and the oil price shock it triggered, has had a severe impact on sovereigns in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Median real GDP for Fitch-rated SSA sovereigns will contract by 2.1% in 2020 with growth in 2021 of 4%, barely above trend growth.

Jermaine Leonard is a Director, Sovereign Ratings at Fitch Ratings.

Jan Friederich is a Senior Director at Fitch Ratings.

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