Jamaica’s creditworthiness is improving, Scotiabank’s economic units stated in the economic Executive Briefing on Jamaica. Fitch recently upgraded the country’s sovereign credit rating to “B” and assigned it a “stable” outlook Scotiabank Economic report says.
The revision reflects the successful implementation of the IMF program, strengthening external finances, and decreasing public debt the report stated. The report goes on to state, “Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s rate Jamaica in the “B” (stable outlook) and “Caa2” (positive outlook) categories, respectively. According to the IMF, the public sector debt reduction program is estimated to lower the general government debt-to-GDP ratio to below 115% in 2017 from 124.7% in 2015. Indeed, the buyback of PetroCaribe debt in August 2015 at a discounted face value lowered the country’s public debt ratio by 10 percentage points and will ease the external debt repayment burden.”