PARIS: Ratings agency S&P there were a record seven defaults on sovereign debt repayments in 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, although the vast majority of countries’ creditworthiness didn’t lose out.
Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, Zambia and Suriname — twice — failed to repay some tranches of their sovereign debt, S&P said in a report.
The defaulters “entered the year with already weakened credit metrics... and had little room to absorb the impact of the pandemic-induced recession”, it added.
Meanwhile “the COVID-19 pandemic and oil price collapse accounted for most” of the 26 ratings downgrades for state borrowers, the highest number since 2011.
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