From Reuters

Ethiopia has hired French investment bank and asset manager Lazard Ltd in a bid to select rating companies and secure its first credit rating, officials said on Thursday, which would pave the way for issuing a debut Eurobond.

In an October interview, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told Reuters that Addis Ababa planned “not only a Eurobond but other bonds as well” once it secured a rating.

Ethiopia has ruled out liberalizing its state-owned banks or telecoms sector to foreigners saying the revenues generated for the state each year were spent on vital infrastructure projects.

But a Eurobond issue would give investors, who have snapped up sub-Saharan sovereign bonds, another route into Africa’s second most populous nation, which is keen to shift its largely agrarian economy towards textiles and other manufacturing.

“We chose a French company. The second phase will be to initiate a rating for the country,” Sufian Ahmed, Ethiopia’s minister for finance and economic development, told a business forum attended by a delegation of 30 French firms.

Another official at the ministry told Reuters the government had hired Lazard Ltd, and that Addis Ababa expected the whole process to be finalised in a “few months”.

Written by Aaron Maasho | Read more at Reuters