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Weekly Lists
September 29, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 26
bne:Credit
Uzbekistan wants to obtain sovereign credit rating
Uzbekistan has started preparations to obtain a sovereign credit rating, Gazeta.uz news agency reported on September 27, citing the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Kuchkarov speaking at the International Press Club (IPC) meeting on September 27.
If followed through on and completed, the move would further improve foreign investment opportunities for the country, with the Central Asian nation recently having lifted strict currency controls, which long fed the Uzbek som black market, scaring away potential foreign investors. Uzbekistan is also hoping that a sovereign credit rating would allow the country’s banks and enterprises to receive foreign loans at lower interest rates.
“We are at the very beginning of obtaining a sovereign credit rating,” Kuchkarov said. “The New-York based Citibank will become our consultant, maybe it will be a consortium of banks - the nearest future will show.”
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was currently expected to approve a programme for “processing an application” to obtain a sovereign credit rating.
Hungary’s Government Debt Management Agency AKK announced on September 26 that it plans to issue 10-year Eurobonds to refinance high-interest dollar bonds maturing soon. The agency mandated BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank and ING to carry out the transaction.
This would be the first such transaction in the history of the debt manager, which expects significant interest savings for Hungary. The positive market environment and the country's improving assessment has resulted in the drop of bond yields to negative territory, it added.
Investors will have seven days to sell their USD bonds, after
which the AKK will offer the euro bonds "depending on market circumstances", it said. The transaction will not alter the size or the proportion of Hungaryʼs FX state debt. The debt manager did not specify which dollar bonds it intends to repurchase.
Hungary is returning to the euro market for the first time in six years. The last euro-denominated sovereign issue was a €1bn seven-year bond issued with a 6% coupon in May 2011. In the last few years, the government made it a priority to reduce the share of foreign currency debt within Hungary's total debt to reduce exposure to global market fluctuations.
Hungary plans to issue Eurobonds soon