FILE \u2013 A view of Maputo, capital of Mozambique. {File photo: Porto de Maputo]<\/p>\n
Senegal, Mozambique and Malawi could default on their debts in the next two years, Citi\u2019s Chief Africa Economist David Cowan \u200bsaid on Thursday, as governments reel from the impact of \u200cthe Iran oil price shock on their finances and economies.<\/p>\n
Since 2020, the 54-nation continent has experienced four sovereign defaults that were restructuring debt under the G20 \u200binitiative \u2013 Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia and Chad \u2013 with countries buckling under a \u200bmix of heavy debt burdens and economic mismanagement exacerbated \u2060by external shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion \u200bof Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica is still not entirely out of the woods yet in \u200bterms of the debt defaults,\u201d David Cowan told a news briefing.<\/p>\n
Senegal, which has been seeking to steer its way out of a hidden debt crisis uncovered in \u200blate 2024, was still in \u201ca pretty big mess,\u201d he said, meaning \u200bthey could head into a default in 2027 after scraping through this year.<\/p>\n
Malawi and \u200cMozambique \u2060could default this year, Cowan said, citing a steep weakening of their respective currencies, which could push their debt stocks and payments due on hard-currency lending into unsustainable territory.<\/p>\n
Defaults by the two Southern African nations \u200bcould however be \u200bresolved quickly since \u2060Malawi does not have international bonds, while Mozambique has only one outstanding hard-currency bond.<\/p>\n
\u201cMalawi\u2019s debt is largely \u200bowed to the World Bank, multilateral and bilateral donors,\u201d \u200bhe said.<\/p>\n
Overall, \u2060Africa is faring better in terms of international borrowing costs in the Iran war-linked crisis compared with previous ones, Cowan said, citing the Democratic \u2060Republic \u200bof the Congo\u2019s debut Eurobond issuance.<\/p>\n
Kenya could \u200blet its currency weaken to absorb some of the depreciation pressure stemming from elevated prices \u200bof crude oil, Cowan said.<\/p>\n
Source: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE \u2013 A view of Maputo, capital of Mozambique. {File photo: Porto de Maputo] Senegal, Mozambique and Malawi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-397450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}