S. African finance minister says Moody's “schizophrenic”March 1, 2012 - 17:30 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan slammed Moody's on Thursday, March 1 after the ratings agency downgraded five of the country's banks and a state-owned company by one notch this week. “They are not giving us enough credit for managing our economy in a counter-cyclical way,” said Gordhan, according to local media. “They have a problem of schizophrenia.” He said the agencies had first demanded austerity measures to bring down debt, but then wanted to see high growth rates. “You can't have both,” Gordhan said, adding that a balance was needed. “These ratings agencies where shown up for their inadequacy in the lead-up to the global financial crisis,” Gordhan said. “They are now using Europe's debt problems as the brush to paint everyone with, notwithstanding our excellent fiscal management.” South Africa's government debt stands at about 39 per cent of gross domestic product. As M&C reported citing DPA, Moody's had downgraded the banks and the infrastructure development company, citing concerns that the government would have trouble bailing out the systematically important businesses should crisis strike. Top stories Yerevan has dismissed Turkey’s demand to shut down the Armenian nuclear power plant as “inappropriate”. Armenia will loan 2.9 billion drams to Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), according to a draft government decision. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan has “strongly condemned” Armenia’s decision. Kerobyan has said that for the first time in the history of Armenia, the volume of foreign direct investments amounted to about $1 billion. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |