Fitch cuts Cyprus’ rating on fiscal slippages

 

Fitch cut Cyprus’ credit rating by two notches to BBB on Wednesday due to fiscal slippages, saying the island state was likely to require a bailout to meet its funding needs.

“The two-notch downgrade of ratings to ‘BBB’ reflects the actual and anticipated fiscal slippage, compounded by Fitch’s expectation that the sovereign will be unable to access the international debt markets in order to refinance an increasing debt maturity profile in H211 and H112,” Fitch said in a statement.

The other two main rating agencies, Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s, both cut the island’s rating at the end of July. Moody’s rates Cyprus Baa1, Standard and Poor’s BBB-plus.

 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.