Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
London - Global ratings agency Fitch on Thursday warned top economies including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Spain could endanger their creditworthiness if they do not bring down public debt.
The warning comes as leaders of the Group of 20 major developed and developing economies meet in the US city of Pittsburgh in an attempt to coordinate policies to emerge from a painful global recession.
Fitch's sovereign ratings chief for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Brian Coulton, said major economies need to show "greater clarity on strategies for withdrawing the exceptional fiscal stimulus of this year and next."
David Riley, head of global sovereign ratings at Fitch, said: "Governments need to validate confidence in their commitment to fiscal consolidation over the medium-term... by articulating credible exit strategies relatively soon."
Governments around the world have put in place unprecedented spending programmes to stave off the worst effects of the crisis. The worry now is about how and when this spending can be reduced and what the effects will be.
Fitch said "fiscal exit strategies will play a key part in its assessment of the outlook for sovereign creditworthiness in high grade AAA-rated countries."
- AFP