Credit rating agency

Foreign investors trust Türkiye and their worries about the economic program the government implements have disappeared, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

A significant reduction in the debt ratio, the strengthening of economic resilience, and improvement in Greece's governance indicators are the three essential steps required for the country to fully normalize and regain an A credit rating, as it had before the debt crisis, thus aligning with the average credit rating of eurozone economies. This analysis comes from the Bank of Greece.

Fitch Ratings revised the outlook on Greece's four systemic banks - Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank and Piraeus Bank - to positive from stable on Thursday, following the investment grade it gave Greek bonds on December 1.

More positive reports on Greek banks have come out from Canadian ratings agency DBRS and US financial services company Jefferies Group. 

DBRS notes that improvements in operational results and a better risk profile support a further strengthening of the banks' capitalization. But it also expects a slowdown in net income from interest rates. 

A reduction in the cost of borrowing by 1.7 percentage points has been achieved thanks to the upgrades to Greece's credit rating by rating agencies during the last four years. 

Greek bonds are already trading as though the country has regained investment grade, bank analysts that deal with Greek government debt told Reuters on Friday, with the news agency reporting that investors consider Greece's return to investment-grade credit ratings "a done deal."

Building factories to boost job creation and make France more independent - that's President Emmanuel Macron's ambition for the French economy.

It's a big challenge, as France reels from protracted protests, rising food and energy prices and other fallout from the Ukraine war.

France will go ahead with structural reforms to overhaul its economy after credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country's debt worthiness, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has told AFP.    

Fitch downgraded France's debt worthiness a notch to "AA-" from "AA" on April 28, claiming the country's "fiscal metrics are weaker than peers".    

Greece has not yet obtained investment grade because, obviously, the elections are coming up, the director of the economic office of the prime minister, Alex Patelis, said at the Delphi Economic Forum this week.

Standard & Poor's refrained from granting investment grade to the Greek economy on Friday, but showed it intends to do so in its next rating action, as it upgraded Greece's outlook from "Stable" to "Positive," in a move largely expected by markets.