Ratings agency revises Egypt outlook to negative

The Standard and Poor's ratings agency said Friday it has downgraded the outlook on Egypt's long-term sovereign credit to negative from stable because of "external and fiscal difficulties".

"The negative outlook reflects our view that Egypt's external and fiscal vulnerabilities might increase further over the next 12 months. We consider that this could dampen the country's economic recovery and exacerbate sociopolitical tensions," it said in a statement.


The agency forecast that Egypt's current account deficits will widen to an average of 4.8 percent of GDP in 2016-2019, along with weak exports and tourism revenues, while "consolidation is proceeding more slowly than we had anticipated".