Seychelles economy gets healthy rating from Fitch |03 February 2012

The principal secretary for Finance Ahmed Afif however said the rating is a little better since it says the outlook on foreign and local currency ratings are ‘B+’ with a stable outlook on the long term.

“The government is very pleased that we have managed to maintain a ‘B’ rating,” he said.
He said the rating is a useful tool to investors, adding the agency’s three directors were here on January 17, 2012, and they referred to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment as well, which rated Seychelles well.

Seychelles pays Fitch US $40,000 to do the assessment, and Mr Afif said we changed from Standard and Poor after that agency gave a favourable assessment but we entered into economic difficulties, so using Standard and Poor would have raised the question of credibility.

Mr Afif said potential investors would look at relative changes between a current and the previous rating, noting the last two are very similar “which therefore gives an indication of stability”.

“Investors would match the rating with the IMF’s reports and reviews on Seychelles’ economic performance getting an indication of how well the country is fairing generally.”

“For us a ‘B’ rating is positive and is an indication of stability and is also a measure of success because we are going through a period of a lot of changes around us particularly in the external environment which has deteriorated very rapidly in the last three to four months, posing danger to the Seychelles economy,” he said, referring to the effects of the global economic crisis and its effects on tourism, which the report says could also be affected by Air Seychelles stopped flights to Europe.

Nation hopes to give further details from the report soon.