Standard&Poor’s confirms existing credit rating of Tomsk Region

Standard&Poor’s decided not to change the international scale credit rating of Tomsk Region and keep it at BB-.

The region’s Department of Finance says it is the most important indicator of the success of the region’s efforts to mitigate potential financial risks for its budget system. At the same time, the agency downgraded the region’s outlook.

Deputy Governor, Head of the Tomsk Oblast Department of Finance commented that “the main reason for this is reduced borrowing capability of the country’s financial market with most mechanisms widely used in the past not functioning properly lately”. It is worth noting, still, that last week Tomsk Region was the first region of Russia to list exchange-traded bonds in the Moscow Exchange at 14.5% interest rate (comparable with a bank loan).

In 2015, after lowering the sovereign debt rating of Russia Standard&Poor’s reduced the ratings of three Russian regions and downgraded the outlook for two regions, one of them Tomsk Region. S&P’s analysts say that a way to improve the outlook will be to open a mid-term credit market and use it to attract money to the regional budget. Tomsk Region has already made a step towards this goal by listing an exchange-traded bonded loan.

• 
• April
•