SKOPJE (North Macedonia), August 26 (SeeNews) – North Macedonia's central bank, the NBRSM, said that Standard & Poor's (S&P) has affirmed its 'BB-/B' long-term and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the country, highlighting the stability of its banking system.
"The central bank successfully maintains the confidence in the banking sector, which is also shown by the constant growth of deposits in 2020 and 2021," S&P noted in a country report on North Macedonia, the central bank said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to S&P, North Macedonia's denar is stable, the monetary policy is in favour of economic recovery, foreign reserves have increased, the banking system in the country is stable, and the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio was at a low level of 3.4% in the second quarter of 2021, NBRSM said.
Despite the 500 million euro ($587.3 million) Eurobond repayment in July, foreign reserves grew on an annual comparison basis and the credit agency does not expect fluctuations on the foreign exchange market, while the central bank is prepared to intervene, including through the repo line of 400 million euro from the European Central Bank (ECB), NBRSM noted.
The inflation expectations of S&P for this year correspond to the central bank's forecast of 2.2%.
($ = 0.8514 euro)