Cape Town – Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday affirmed South Africa's investment grade credit, and surprisingly kept its outlook stable, but it warned that political and growth concerns should be addressed.

This follows rating reviews by Moody’s in May (which affirmed its ratings at Baa2/P-2 and assigned a negative outlook) and Standard & Poor’s last week Friday (which affirmed its BBB- level with a negative outlook). Importantly, all three ratings agencies have kept South Africa above non-investment grade – also known as junk status.

Most economists believed Fitch would change the future prospects for the rating to negative, which it did not do.

