Lebanon’s budget plan to cut its fiscal deficit to 7.6% of GDP this year may not be enough to restore damaged confidence in the deeply-indebted country, credit rating agency S&P Global said on Tuesday.
Mounting worries about Lebanon’s finances saw S&P put the country’s B- rating on a negative outlook at the start of March.
“The announcement itself (to cut the deficit to 7.6% from above 11% last year) may not be sufficient to improve the confidence of non-resident depositors and investors, which has waned in recent months,” S&P’s primary Lebanon analyst, Zahabia Saleem Gupta, said by e-mail.
She added slippage from the new target could happen, particularly since any cost cutting measures will only be implemented in the second half of the year.
“We estimate the 2019 fiscal deficit outturn at about 10% of GDP,” Gupta said. “In the absence of substantial revenue-enhancing and cost-cutting measures, we forecast that Lebanon’s general government debt to GDP ratio will continue rising to above 160% of GDP by 2022, from 143% in 2018.”
REUTERS