Nepal to take first-ever sovereign credit rating

KATHMANDU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — A team from credit ratings agency Fitch has arrived in Nepal to conduct a first-ever sovereign credit rating for the country, a government official said on Wednesday.
A Fitch team including two experts arrived in Nepal on Tuesday and they are scheduled to hold a series of meetings with government officials and representatives of the private sector in the next few days, said Mahesh Bhattarai, spokesperson for the finance ministry.
“The agency is expected to take a few months to evaluate Nepal’s situation,” he told Xinhua.
Nepali officials said that a relatively better score in sovereign rating would help the country attract foreign investment and ease borrowing from abroad.
Bhattarai noted that the government had trained officials on how to produce documents and details for the rating agency.
As the sovereign rating will show Nepal’s weaknesses too, Bhattarai believes that it will help Nepal identify the areas where reforms are needed to address the weaknesses.
The credit rating is long overdue as the Nepali government announced its plan as early as 2019. ■