Due to the significant increase in infrastructure spending in the Maldives within the past two years, Moody’s expects country’s debt burden to rise close to 70% of GDP by the turn of the decade.
One of the three largest credit rating agencies in the world, Moody’s Investors gave Maldives it’s first sovereign rating in September 2016. Moody’s changed the outlook on the Maldives’ sovereign rating from positive to negative in July 2018
In an announcement, Moody’s stated that the country’s debt burden has risen sharply over the past two years to levels above the median for B-rated sovereigns.
The strain on the Maldives’ fragile external position could also increase in the coming years, if large imports as part of the investment projects are not fully financed by capital inflows in a timely manner and/or the exchange rate appreciates in real effective terms once again.
