Sri Lanka local debt at risk of second hair-cut at CCC: Fitch
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s local currency debt which has taken almost 44 percent hair cut as the rupee collapsed from 200 to 360 to the US dollar may be at risk of a second hair cut, a rating agency has warned.
A hair cut on rupee debt would also hit bank capital forcing the government to get into more debt to bail them out.
“A default on local-currency debt could erode local banks’ capital positions, possibly leading to government capital injections into the banking sector that would erode the net benefits of such a restructuring, and when we affirmed the Long-Term Local-Currency IDR in May we assumed that the government would continue to service local-currency debt,” the rating agency said.
“Nonetheless, the ‘CCC’ rating reflects a high risk that local-currency debt will be included in debt restructuring, as the stock and interest costs are large, and omitting it could increase the restructuring burden on holders of foreign-currency debt.”
Sri Lanka’s rupee has fallen sharply putting people in marginal income brackets into poverty and sharply lowering living standards.
Steep depreciation also raises rupee tax revenues to the government making it easier to service the debt, while keeping rupee spending such as salaries in check, in an economic phenomenon known as ‘inflating away’ debt.
At the May value of rupee at 360 to the US dollar, the December 21 dollar of rupee debt has fallen to 25.6 billion US dollars from 46.2 billion rupees.
The rupee debt in December 2021 some of which have since been rolled over, is now worth 20.53 billion rupees, amounting to a hair cut of 44 percent.
Most of the debt is owned by banks and pension funds.
Sri Lanka officials have said only foreign debt would be subject to re-structuring and not rupee debt under terms announced in April 2022 and there was no plans to impose a second hair cut on rupee debt.
However some reports by foreign banks have raised the possibility that creditors may also demand re-structuring of rupee debt.
Interest on rupee debt has risen to about 31 percent, sharply below the inflation of 50 percent.
Many of the bonds issued or rolled over in 2020 and 2022 were at low rates with large volumes of money printed to keep their yields down contributing to eventual default. (Colombo/July27/2022)
