DBRS affirms investment grade rating for Greece

Athens: The Canadian house DBRS kept the assessment and outlook of the Greek economy unchanged in its latest report.

Specifically, it assesses the Greek debt with BBB (low) with stable prospects.

It is noted that the current rating of Greek bonds places them in investment grade status and the Canadian house was the first of the 4 houses recognized by the ECB to upgrade them 6 months ago, marking Greece’s return to the markets after 13 years.

Today’s second assessment of the year after that of Scope Ratings (which on January 26 also kept the same assessment unchanged), did not hold any surprises as it was largely the continuation of a recent DBRS report in which the house underlined the resilience of the Greek economy.

Specifically, the house emphasized on the one hand the fact that our country is a member of the EU and the Eurozone and on the other hand the implementation of the previous economic reforms.

As the house notes in its report, “the stable trend reflects DBRS’ assessment that the risks to the credit ratings are balanced. Healthy economic performance together with rising primary surpluses will help the public debt-to-GDP ratio remain on a strong downward trajectory going forward”.

After strong GDP growth of 5.6% in 2022, Greece’s economic activity moderates to around 2% and is expected to remain above this level in 2024-2025. The increase in primary surpluses, projected above 2% of GDP over the same period, from 1.1% in 2023, will help government debt as a percentage of GDP to fall below 150% of GDP in 2025, after the estimated 160% of GDP last year.

In addition, the implementation of structural reforms has gained strong momentum, which together with higher investment, supported by European Union (EU) funds, is expected to increase GDP momentum.