Bahamas rated 3rd ‘investment grade’ nation in region

TIMES INT'L

International credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has ranked The Bahamas third among the five ‘investment grade’ jurisdictions in the region, due to the country’s rating of BBB+ with a stable outlook.

Both Trinidad and Tobago and Aruba are ahead of this nation in an assessment that many potential foreign direct investors look at to provide information on good places to invest in.

“It is very important,” S&P Director Olga Kalinina told Guardian Business yesterday.

“First of all, certain investors — like pension funds — are not even allowed to invest in the speculative grade.”

Debt rated below BBB- at Standard & Poor’s is considered speculative grade. It means that The Bahamas, having slipped twice in the last several years, is slightly above that speculative grade category. That drop would not be good news in a country that is highly dependent on foreign investment.

There are currently nine nations rated by S&P in the region, excluding the Dominican Republic, with five countries falling in the investment grade category and four in the non-investment category.

Former U.S. Senator George LeMieux is projecting growth in American investment in the region — specifically identifying The Bahamas as a well-placed country for a lot of those new opportunities. “I think you will continue to see businesses go to the Caribbean and Latin America for purposes of trade and for the purposes of new business ventures,” he told Guardian Business recently. “[The Bahamas is] a significant trading partner and a welcome partner.

“It’s not just a tourist exchange, it’s also goods and services. So I think that The Bahamas is so close to Florida that there is only more opportunity for the two — Florida and The Bahamas — to work together.” (Excerpt from the Nassau Guardian)

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