Maldives needs to listen to international indicators including Fitch Ratings: Nasheed

Parliament Speaker and Former President Mohamed Nasheed has stated that Maldives needs to listen to international indicators including the recent downgrade of credit rating by Fitch Ratings.

The Majlis Speaker’s assertion comes at a time the Ministry of Finance has revealed that Maldives disagrees with the downgrade and assessments of the Fitch Ratings, as the economic outlook projects a "more promising" recovery.

In a Twitter post on Saturday, Nasheed wrote that Maldives will not default if its external debt is restructures especially to commercial institutions of China.

An optimistic Nasheed added that recovery looks positive, with tourism and travel bouncing back.

Maldives credit ratings saw a major fall in the Fitch Ratings due to the weakened economic growth of the island nation in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Maldives long-term Foreign Currency Issuer Default Rating dropped from ‘B’ to ‘CCC’ on Thursday.

In its statement the finance ministry stated that Maldives has “never” defaulted on debt obligations thus far and that this is a distinction that the island nation plans to hold into the future, the ministry noted that the incumbent government is “fully committed” to ensure that interest for sovereign bonds, are fully paid in a timely manner.

The country has been “successful” in controlling the spread of Covid-19 seven months since the crisis surfaced in Maldives, having moved past the peak of the Covid-19 wave.

Maldives is also observing an increase in tourist arrivals and flight frequencies and the government has also been successful in easing travel restrictions for a number of important tourism markets.

Within the context of the economic reality the country is adjusting to, the government is “proactively” working to re-invigorate the tourism sector. Maldives is also one of the main tourism economics to reopen after the lockdown with the proper guidelines implemented to restart tourism while still battling the virus.

The incumbent administration has been “immensely” successful in narrowing the financing gap, through bilateral and multilateral sources including the governments of India and Japan, the Asian Development Bank, World Bank Group, Islamic Development Bank Group, European Investment Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, OPEC Fund for International Development, International Monetary Fund among others, with others yet in the pipeline.