ANKARA: The countries rated as investable by Moody’s in the low grade include Mauritius, Oman and Thailand with a “Baa1” rating, and Bahamas, Bulgaria, Colombia, Italy, Panama, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain and Uruguay, with a “Baa2” rating. Among the countries rated with this category’s lowest rating are India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Romania, Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago.
Countries in the low-grade investable group, which included Turkey before the recent cut, are represented with “Baa3,” “Baa2” and “Baa1” credit ratings. “Ba1,” “Ba2” and “Ba3” credit ratings are just below “Baa3” and are a “speculative/garbage” level. While the credit ratings of the countries with medium grade is defined as “A1,” “A2” and “A3,” prime and high grade countries are rated with “Aaa,” “Aa1,” “Aa2” and “Aa3.” According to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) data, it is surprising that most of the countries with higher ratings than Turkey cannot be compared to Turkey in terms of macroeconomic indicators.
Given the IMF’s 2016 growth estimations, with 3.8 percent, Turkey is ahead of Mauritius, Thailand, Spain, Colombia, Bulgaria, Oman, Bahama, Uruguay, Italy and South Africa, which have higher credit ratings than Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey’s economy is expected to grow larger than Kazakhstan, Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago, which have the same ratings as Turkey. Considering the numbers of economic growth, only India, Italy, Spain and Indonesia are ahead of Turkey, which has a national income of $751.2 billion, followed by Thailand with $409.7 GDP. The fact that Turkey doubled its closest rival’s economic growth is quite noteworthy.
According to public debt indicators, Turkey outscores nearly all the low-grade investable countries. In terms of public debt to GDP ratio, only three countries out of 21 are in better conditions than Turkey. While public debt to GDP ratio is expected to reach 30.7 percent in Turkey, the said ratio is estimated as 30.2 in Bulgaria, 27.6 in Indonesia and 22.1 percent in Kazakhstan. Therefore, out of 21 countries in the low-grade investable level, Turkey is ahead of 13 in growth rate, 16 in national income and 17 in public debt to GDP ratio.
