Fitch affirms ratings for Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: Fitch Ratings has affirmed Abu Dhabi's long-term local and foreign currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at 'AA', with a stable outlook - the highest rating given by the agency to an emerging market anywhere in the world.

"The short-term foreign currency IDR is affirmed at 'F1+', Fitch said.

Sovereign credit rating indicates the risk level of the investing environment of a country and is used by those looking to invest abroad.

Fitch treats Abu Dhabi and the UAE's other emirates as sovereign entities.

"Abu Dhabi's external balance sheet provides the key support to the rating. It has a lot of external assets and negligible external debts as far as the government is concerned," Fitch's head of Middle East Sovereign Ratings, Richard Fox, told Gulf News by telephone from London.

"Its public sector - majority state-owned companies - have growing external debts in comparison, but it's not a concern at the moment," said Fox.

He said the validity of the ratings are monitored on a regular basis.

Annual report

"There's an annual report on each country and every country is formally reviewed by us on an annual basis.

"We assigned a rating to Abu Dhabi last July which was 'AA', and it remains unchanged," Fox said.

"A Country Ceiling of 'AA+' is assigned to the UAE, applying to Abu Dhabi and all other emirates within the UAE," Fitch said in a statement.

"In the context of high oil prices, Abu Dhabi's financial wealth is increasing at a rapid rate as the govern-ment uses huge fiscal surpluses to accumulate external assets," it added.