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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (7464)	9/3/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

Venezuela's Izaguirre: Moody's Downgrade Unexpected Dow Jones Newswires WASHINGTON -- Venezuelan Finance Minister Maritza Izaguirre said Thursday that Moody's Investors Service's downgrade of her country's foreign-currency bonds and notes was unexpected. Asked if the downgrade was unjustified, Izaguirre said "one of the main concerns" at a two-day meeting of Latin American finance ministers and central bankers in Washington has been the role of ratings agencies. Moody's on Thursday downgraded the country ceiling for foreign-currency bonds and notes of Venezuela to B2 and the country ceiling for foreign-currency bank deposits to Caa1. "It was unexpected for us," Izaguirre told reporters at the end of the first day of meetings. The devaluation of the Colombian peso would likely have little impact on Venezuela, Izaguirre said, and she denied any plans to change Venezuela's exchange-rate policy. A Colombian minister planned to visit Venezuela this weekend to explain the government's decision, Izaguirre said. Colombia announced late Tuesday that it was shifting downward the band in which the Colombian peso trades by nine percentage points. "If Venezuela devalues, the impact in Colombia is larger than vice versa," Izaguirre said. "It's not a big impact at all. "We are not going to do some macrodevaluation, and we are not going to start exchange controls," she said. Venezuela has no plans to increase oil production to plug its fiscal deficit, Izaguirre said.

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (7464)	9/3/1998 9:36:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22640

Fernandez does not expect recession in Argentina Reuters, Thursday, September 03, 1998 at 21:28 WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Argentina's Economy Minister Roque Fernandez dismissed Standard & Poor's assessment that an Argentine recession is possible and said credit rating agencies should hold their views during times of market tumult. "We do not expect a recession," Fernandez told reporters after a meeting at the International Monetary Fund on the impact of the world financial turbulence on Latin America. Fernandez said markets were acting "irrationally" due to the panic caused by the Russian crisis and that with time investors will begin to differentiate between Latin America and other parts of the world such as southeast Asia. "The markets will discriminate and they will recognize sooner or later that there is nothing fundamentally wrong in Latin America," he said. Moody's Investors Service downgraded Brazil and Venezuela's debt ratings to reflect what it considered to be a growing risk of payments disruptions, and put Mexico and Argentina on review for possible downgrades. Fernandez said credit rating agencies were involved in "intellectual coverage or hedging" in the latest series of recommendations for Latin America. "When we are in a situation of much nervousness or uncertainty, this type of rating should be suspended," he said, while acknowledging that the agencies had a responsibility to report to their clients. Latin American finance ministers at the IMF meeting criticized international investors for lumping Latin America in the same basket as other emerging markets that have run into financial trouble, causing ripples that have hurt their own economies. "We should try to pacify (markets) and try to explain that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with any country in the region," Fernandez said at the end of the first day of the two-day meeting. "Sooner or later the market will differentiate what is going on in each country," he said. +1 202 898-8383, washington.economic.newsroom@reuters.com)) Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service