ACCRA: Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday upgraded Ghana’s long-term local-currency issuer default rating to ‘CCC’ from ‘restricted default’.

Ghana suspended payments on most of its external debt last year, effectively defaulting, and still needs to negotiate a resolution with its private international bondholders and bilateral creditors.

The West African country has already restructured its domestic debt, which will lower Ghana’s interest payments by 10% of the government’s expected revenues or 1.6% of GDP in 2023, and 6% of revenues or 0.9% of GDP in 2024, Fitch said.

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Despite this immediate relief, the restructuring has increased Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio by 0.6 percentage points and the ratio is still above 100% after the process, it said.