The Risk Map gives an overview of the level of risk associated with countries worldwide. Risk ratings are based on a variety of political and economic factors gathered by our Economic Research Team.
The Atradius Risk Map is drawn from a range of sources and features the STAR rating system. This is a system devised by the Atradius Economic Research Team for assessing country risk, including different political and economic risks, or civil unrest and conflict.
Quarter 4 2022 political and economic risk focus
Mexico
Mexican authorities continue to pursue unorthodox policies, undermining contract rights
and the rule of law. Regulatory uncertainty further worsens the business environment and
increases tensions with neighbours, keeping the outlook for investment weak.
With fiscal spaceincreasingly limited as well, the economic growth outlook remains weak.
Namibia
Namibia’s fiscal deficit has widened significantly since the pandemic.
That, on top of rising interest costs and the weak growth prospects contribute to
high and rising public debt. This limits the government’s space to relieve lower income
households struggling with high and rising costs of living.
Mozambique
Mozambique’s country risk has improved thanks to the substantial easing of financing constraints and policy anchor for fiscal consolidation that a new three-year IMF programme offers. Public finances remain at risk of distress and structural weaknesses are high, including weak governance and a difficult security situation.
Political and Economic Country risk
Companies that do business internationally rely on the stability of the business environment in the foreign country. Profits and investments can be vulnerable to adverse developments in this environment. These risks are broadly termed ‘country risk’. The level and change in country risk is, therefore, an important strategic and operational indicator for international companies.
Country risk covers a wide range of factors such as political developments, the risk of (armed) conflict and sovereign financial situation. These factors relate, for example, to regulatory changes, the risk of confiscation, civil unrest, war, currency controls and devaluations. Country risk takes into account a sovereign’s willingness and ability to pay and the impact of this on the ability of public or private entities to meet their cross-border payment obligations. Under our political risk cover contract, we provide cover against a subset of ‘country risk’ events. If you would like to learn more information about an individual market and their STAR rating, see our Country Reports.
The Atradius STAR rating
STAR is the Atradius in-house political risk rating. STAR stands for Sovereign Transfer and Arbitrary Risk and represents a rating system for assessing country risk. The STAR rating is a summary measure of political risk relevant to the Atradius insurance contract and explicitly targets the impact on public or private entities with cross-border payment obligations.
Broadly speaking, the default triggers under an Atradius Political Risk Policy are classed as either Sovereign Transfer or Arbitrary Risk.
The STAR rating runs on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 represents the lowest risk and 10 the highest risk. The 10 rating steps are aggregated into five broad categories to allow their interpretation in terms of credit quality. Starting from the most benign part of the quality spectrum, these categories range from ‘Low Risk’ to ‘Very High Risk’.
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