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Fall of debt bonds and rise in country risk, after change in Finance
Posted On 08 Mar 2018
Ecuadornews:
The market reacted cautiously to the appointment of María Elsa Viteri as Minister of Economy and Finance. In the first instance, the prices of debt bonds fell 2027, at least 2 points: from 109% to 107.1%. It also raised the country risk from 215 to 228 points on the day of appointment.
Santiago Mosquera, a professor of Finance at the USFQ Business School, recalled that Minister Viteri was in Finance in December 2008 when the debt moratorium was declared not because of lack of payment, but because of a decision of her own.
For the expert, the market would be giving him the benefit of the doubt, a few days before President Lenin Moreno makes the formal announcement of the economic plan, next week, upon his return from Chile.
For the expert, now there is a concern “but there is not a market in panic, much less”. In any case, he considered that the market is less comfortable than it was before. Perhaps a change towards the center and with a new person was expected, not with a person who had been a member of the Correa government, he said.
Meanwhile, Ramiro Crespo, director of Analytica Investment, explained that his firm has managed to talk with investors who are concerned because they remember what happened in December 2008, when after the creation of a Commission Minister Viteri declared the default. They are concerned about both the current appointment of Viteri and the creation of the Debt Commission by the Comptroller General, which suggests a similar situation.
Crespo clarified that it is not a similar situation, because the current Commission has a veedora role and is made up of serious members whose purpose is to make sure that there is a technical analysis and that no one will be persecuted.
For his part, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Guayaquil, Pablo Arosemena, reported that in the face of rising country risk, the productive sectors remain on the lookout for the economic scenario. For Arosemena, the minister has a bad image for the declaration of illegitimacy in the external debt.
Faced with the appointment of Viteri, the Ecuadorian Business Committee asked the Government to postpone the announcement of the new economic program. For the EWC, the transition of economic authorities requires an additional period to evaluate this plan in depth. For entrepreneurs, a space for dialogue must be sought, leading to a pragmatic project that corrects imbalances and reactivates the economy. (I)
