Two international agencies have upgraded the Greek sovereign credit rating in the last few days, taking Greece closer to investment grade after a nearly decade of economic crisis and international bailouts, ekathimerini.com reports.
On Friday US rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced the upgrading of the Greek rating by one notch to BB-, from B+, leaving Greece three notches below investment grade. S&P maintained its positive outlook for Greece.
This was the first rating upgrade for Greece by a major credit-rating agency following the government change in July.
Experts told Xinhua agency in recent interviews that emergence from “junk status” is attainable within a year.
“One notch is certainly not enough yet to take Greece to the brink of investment grade, as S&P has always been stricter than others towards the Greek economy, but that may happen next year,” professor of finance Dimitris Kenourgios in the University of Athens noted to Xinhua on Friday.
It came after an upgrade by German rating agency Scope to BB, from BB-, also with a positive outlook, a week earlier.
“Since the election of the New Democracy government in July, we can see renewed optimism regarding economic recovery, reflected in rising bank deposits, growth in business loans and increased commercial and residential property prices,” Scope analyst Jakob Suwalski pointed out on Thursday.
In this context, experts consider it possible that the Greek economy emerges from “junk status” within a year, so that its bonds secure investment grade and can be accepted in the European Central Bank’s bond buying program, also known as Quantitative Easing.
Nicola Mai, eurozone analyst at the PIMCO mutual funds, said Greece could return to the investment fold within the next six to 12 months, while Citigroup forecast in a report on Thursday that Greece can look forward to more rating upgrades.
Source: Xinhua
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