This report does not constitute a rating action.
This article presents S&P Global Ratings' country risk assessments as of April 21, 2022. We currently review 141 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 1, 2022, we have:
- Revised our country risk assessment on Sri Lanka to '6' (very high risk) from '5' (high risk). This reflects the continued deterioration in the macroeconomic environment as well as the overall operating conditions for businesses in the country. It also follows our sovereign rating action on Sri Lanka (see "Sri Lanka Foreign Currency Rating Lowered To 'CC' From 'CCC'; Outlook Negative," published on April 13, 2022. The Sri Lankan government announced on April 12, 2022 that it will suspend debt servicing on some foreign currency obligations amid steeply rising external funding pressures.
We do not expect any rating actions as a result of this change.
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
Chart 2
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, and "Project Finance Operations Methodology," published Sept. 16, 2014.
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 April 21, 2022 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
--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 | Armenia | Angola |
Denmark | France | Cayman Islands | Brazil | Azerbaijan | Argentina |
Finland | Hong Kong | Chile | Bulgaria | Bahrain | Belarus |
Germany | Iceland | Czech Republic | China | Bangladesh | Belize |
Luxembourg | Ireland | Estonia | Colombia | Barbados | Burkina Faso |
Netherlands | Japan | Israel | Costa Rica | Benin | Congo (Republic of) |
Norway | New Zealand | Latvia | Croatia | Bolivia | Congo (Democratic Republic of) |
Singapore | South Korea | Lithuania | Curacao | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Ecuador |
Sweden | U.K. | Macau | Cyprus | Cambodia | Eritrea |
Switzerland | Malaysia | Dubai | Cote d'Ivoire | Ethiopia | |
U.S. | Malta | Greece | Dominican Republic | Gabon | |
Portugal | Hungary | Egypt | Iraq | ||
Qatar | India | El Salvador | Lebanon | ||
Slovakia | Indonesia | Georgia | Madagascar | ||
Slovenia | Italy | Ghana | Mauritania | ||
Spain | Kuwait | Grenada | Mozambique | ||
Taiwan | Mauritius | Guatemala | Nicaragua | ||
United Arab Emirates | Mexico | Honduras | Nigeria | ||
Morocco | Jamaica | Pakistan | |||
Oman | Jordan | Papua New Guinea | |||
Panama | Kazakhstan | Russia | |||
Peru | Kenya | Sri Lanka | |||
Philippines | Macedonia | Suriname | |||
Poland | Maldives | Tanzania | |||
Ras Al Khaimah | Marshall Islands | Togo | |||
Romania | Moldova | Ukraine | |||
Saudi Arabia | Mongolia | Zambia | |||
Serbia | Paraguay | Zimbabwe | |||
Sharjah | Rwanda | ||||
South Africa | Senegal | ||||
Thailand | Tunisia | ||||
Trinidad and Tobago | Turkey | ||||
Turks and Caicos | Uganda | ||||
Uruguay | Uzbekistan | ||||
Vietnam |
Table 2
Regional Risk Assessments As Of April 21, 2022* | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
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 | 6 | |||
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
Corporate and financial services ratings
- Insurers Rating Methodology, July 1, 2019
- Sovereign Rating Methodology, Dec. 18, 2017
- Project Finance Operations Methodology, Sept. 16, 2014
- Country Risk Assessment Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 19, 2013
- Corporate Methodology, Nov. 19, 2013
- Ratings Above The Sovereign--Corporate And Government Ratings: Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 19, 2013
- Project Finance Construction Methodology, Nov. 15, 2013
- Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment Methodology And Assumptions, Nov. 9, 2011
Structured finance ratings
- Incorporating Sovereign Risk In Rating Structured Finance Securities: Methodology And Assumptions, Jan. 30, 2019
Sovereign and public finance ratings
- U.S. Municipal Retail Electric And Gas Utilities: Methodology And Assumptions, Sept. 27, 2018
- U.S. And Canadian Not-For-Profit Acute Care Health Care Organizations, March 19, 2018
- U.S. And Canadian Not-For-Profit Transportation Infrastructure Enterprises: Methodologies And Assumptions, March 12, 2018
- Solid Waste System Financings, Jan. 29, 2018
- Sovereign Rating Methodology, Dec. 18, 2017
- U.S. Public Finance Charter Schools: Methodology And Assumptions, Jan. 3, 2017
- U.S. Public Finance Waterworks, Sanitary Sewer, And Drainage Utility Systems: Rating Methodology And Assumptions, Jan. 19, 2016
- Methodology: Not-For-Profit Public And Private Colleges And Universities, Jan. 6, 2016
- Methodology For Rating Public And Nonprofit Social Housing Providers, Dec. 17, 2014
Related Research
- Country Risk Assessments Update: April 2022, April 1, 2022
- Country Risk Assessments Update: Country Risk Assessment On Belarus Revised, March 7, 2022
- Country Risk Assessments Update: March 2022, March 4, 2022
- Country Risk Assessments Update: February 2022, Feb. 28, 2022
- Country Risk Assessments Update: November 2021, Nov. 16, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: October 2021, Oct. 7, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: Country Risk Assessment On Ethiopia Revised, Sept. 30, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: September 2021, Sept. 22, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: Country Risk Assessment Assigned To Madagascar, Aug. 18, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: August 2021, Aug. 6, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: July 2021, July 20, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: June 2021, June 10, 2021
- Country Risk Assessments Update: April 2021, April 25, 2021
Primary Credit Analysts: | Timucin Engin, Dubai + 971 4 372 7152; timucin.engin@spglobal.com |
Mario Chakar, London + 44 20 7176 7070; mario.chakar@spglobal.com | |
Secondary Contacts: | Andreas Kindahl, Stockholm + 46 84 40 5907; andreas.kindahl@spglobal.com |
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