APAC Chart of the Week: 29 March 2019

As Ukraine’s tightly contested presidential race enters its last stretch this week, policy uncertainty is expected to dominate until a very likely second round of elections in April, if not until the October parliamentary polls, market participants told Debtwire. This uncertainty spells bad news for a country reliant on external funding to make USD 20bn in sovereign and quasi-sovereign debt repayments between 2019 and 2021, they said.

Mozambique continues at the heart of a dramatic debt scandal which has left investors in wait-and-see mode, according to five market participants polled by Debtwire. The government's USD 727m 10.5% 2023 bonds have scarcely traded since January despite many enquiries, said a trader.

The 2009 financial crisis may have been global, but its effects in each country had a distinctly local flavour. None more so, perhaps, than the United Arab  Emirates, where a highly mobile population of expats faced potential jail time over bounced cheques or defaults on loans.

There was little reaction in the Republic of Kazakhstan’s Eurobonds yesterday (19 March) following a surprise resignation announcement from the country’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, after almost 30 years in power, according to three analysts, a trader and a political risk analyst.

Turkish Eurobond issuance volume year-to-date (YTD) is already double that in 1Q18, following a deluge of Anatolian deals in March, according to a Debtwire analysis. Some USD 9.4bn worth of US dollar- and euro-denominated bonds have been issued so far this year, compared to USD 4.7bn in 1Q18.