Fitch, a rating agency, has now upgraded Malta’s Long-Term Foreign and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) to ‘A+’ from ‘A’ with a stable outlook. Malta returned to the A+ category following the downgrade four years ago to category ‘A’, with the agency naming substantial fiscal slippage as the purpose for the September 2013 demote.
Fitch outlined one of the main contributors to this upgrade, as the fast declining gross general government debt, which is anticipated to reduce to 50% of GDP in 2019, supported by the GDP growth remaining strong and the recurrent primary surpluses. The credit rating institution further added that it supposes government-guaranteed liabilities to drop in the upcoming years.
The positive turnout in the fiscal balance is also considered as an additional driver contributing to the advancement, whereby the government turned years of fiscal deficits into a fiscal surplus last year. It is anticipated that Malta will continue accomplishing a fiscal surplus in the upcoming years which express the government’s efforts to improve tax collection and tax revenue; reduce redundant expenditure on social benefits, ease pension pressures and support higher economic growth.
Read more here: https://www.fitchratings.com/site/pr/1027782