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Country Risk Assessments Update: June 2021

This article presents updates to S&P Global Ratings' country risk assessments. We currently review 138 assessments using the criteria in "Country Risk Assessment Methodology And Assumptions," published Nov. 19, 2013, on RatingsDirect (see table 1 in the Appendix).

Latest Country Risk Actions

Since we last published this report on April 25, 2021, we have:

  • Assigned Rwanda a country risk assessment of '5' (high risk).
  • Assigned Togo a country risk assessment of '6' (very high risk).

About Country Risk Assessments

We define "country risk" as the broad range of economic, institutional, financial market, and legal risks that arise from doing business with or in a specific country and can affect a nonsovereign entity's credit quality. The credit risk for every rated entity and transaction is influenced to varying degrees by these types of country-specific risks. The factors we evaluate are economic risk, institutional and governance effectiveness risk, financial system risk, and payment culture/rule of law risk (see chart 1).

Chart 1

image

Our country risk assessments rank country risk on a scale of '1' (very low risk) to '6' (very high risk). For corporate, infrastructure, and insurance entities, the country risk assessment combines with our industry risk and competitive position assessments to produce the business risk assessment (see "Insurers Rating Methodology," published July 1, 2019 and "Corporate Methodology," published Nov. 19, 2013 on RatingsDirect). Country risk is also considered in project finance transactions (see "Project Finance Construction Methodology," published Nov. 15, 2013.

Our use of the country risk assessments in other sectors will be governed by the rating criteria for those sectors and for other asset classes. However, they do not affect our methodology for considering country risk for banks, found in "Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment Methodology And Assumptions," published Nov. 9, 2011.

Appendix: Latest Country Risk Scores

Table 1

Country Risk Assessments By Group And Country As Of June 10, 2021
--Ranging from Group '1' (lowest risk) to Group '6' (highest risk)--
Very low risk (1) Low risk (2) Intermediate risk (3) Moderately high risk (4) High risk (5) Very high risk (6)
Australia Austria Abu Dhabi Bahamas Albania Algeria
Canada Belgium Bermuda Botswana Azerbaijan Angola
Denmark France Cayman Islands Brazil Bahrain Argentina
Finland Hong Kong Chile Bulgaria Bangladesh Belize
Germany Iceland Czech Republic China Barbados Burkina Faso
Luxembourg Ireland Estonia Colombia Belarus Congo (Republic of)
Netherlands Japan Israel Costa Rica Bolivia Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Norway New Zealand Lithuania Croatia Bosnia and Herzegovina Ecuador
Singapore South Korea Macau Curacao Cambodia Eritrea
Sweden U.K. Malaysia Cyprus Dominican Republic Gabon
Switzerland Malta Dubai Egypt Iraq
U.S. Portugal Greece El Salvador Lebanon
Qatar Hungary Ethiopia Mauritania
Slovakia India Georgia Mozambique
Slovenia Indonesia Ghana Nicaragua
Spain Italy Grenada Nigeria
Taiwan Kuwait Guatemala Pakistan
United Arab Emirates Latvia Honduras Papua New Guinea
Mauritius Jamaica Suriname
Mexico Jordan Tanzania
Morocco Kazakhstan Togo
Oman Kenya Venezuela
Panama Macedonia Zambia
Peru Maldives Zimbabwe
Philippines Marshall Islands
Poland Moldova
Ras Al Khaimah Mongolia
Romania Paraguay
Saudi Arabia Russia
Serbia Rwanda
Sharjah Senegal
South Africa Sri Lanka
Thailand Tunisia
Trinidad and Tobago Turkey
Turks and Caicos Uganda
Uruguay Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

Table 2

Regional Risk Assessments As Of June 10, 2021*
Region Weighted-average country risk
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Western Europe 1
Southern Europe 4
Western and Southern Europe 2
Eastern Europe 4
Central Europe 4
Eastern Europe and Central Asia 5
Africa 5
Middle East 4
The Americas
North America 1
Latin America 4
Central America 5
The Caribbean 5
Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific 4
Central Asia 4
East Asia 3
Australia and New Zealand 1
*See Section C of the "Corporate Methodology" criteria article for further details on how regional scores are derived.

Related Criteria And Research

For a fuller understanding of our country risk assessment criteria and other relevant publications, please see the following articles published on RatingsDirect.

Related criteria
Related research

This report does not constitute a rating action.

Primary Credit Analyst:Timucin Engin, Dubai + 971 4 372 7152;
timucin.engin@spglobal.com
Secondary Contacts:Andreas Kindahl, Stockholm (46) 8-440-5907;
andreas.kindahl@spglobal.com
Pablo F Lutereau, Buenos Aires (54) 11-4891-2125;
pablo.lutereau@spglobal.com
Mario Chakar, London (44) 20-7176-7070;
mario.chakar@spglobal.com
Emmanuel F Volland, Paris (33) 1-4420-6696;
emmanuel.volland@spglobal.com
Ravi Bhatia, London (44) 20-7176-7113;
ravi.bhatia@spglobal.com
Andrew Wood, Singapore + 65 6239 6315;
andrew.wood@spglobal.com
Ali Karakuyu, London (44) 20-7176-7301;
ali.karakuyu@spglobal.com
Candela Macchi, Buenos Aires (54)-11-4891-2110;
candela.macchi@spglobal.com

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