Russia Receives First Foreign Credit Rating Since 2022

China Chengxin International Credit Rating (CCXI) has raised Russia's sovereign credit rating from BBB-g to BBB+g, marking the first such foreign rating since the start of the military operation in Ukraine.

In March 2022, the Big Three global rating agencies — S&P, Moody's, and Fitch — suspended operations in Russia and withdrew their ratings. The BBB-g rating had been assigned by CCXI prior to the conflict. After 2022, the agency downgraded Russia to BBg and later withdrew the rating entirely. The new BBB+g rating reflects a stable outlook, indicating moderate economic and financial resilience and a moderate risk of default.

In its justification for the rating, CCXI stated that the Russian economy demonstrates resilience to shocks, supported by fiscal and monetary policies, international reserves, and the National Wealth Fund (NWF). The agency noted Russia's low public debt and characterized its debt servicing as full and timely. CCXI expects a slight slowdown in inflation and moderate economic growth in 2025, attributing this to the Central Bank's high key interest rate.

As of May 9, the Bank of Russia estimated the country's international reserves at $687.3 billion. According to the Finance Ministry, the NWF held 11.75 trillion rubles as of April 1. As of May 1, Russia's domestic public debt stood at 24.989 trillion rubles, and external debt at $53.9 billion. According to Rosstat, Russia's GDP growth in the first quarter of 2025 slowed to 1.4% year-on-year. As of May 16, annual inflation was 10.23%. The Central Bank's key interest rate has remained at a record 21% since October 2024.

A sovereign credit rating is a measure of a country's ability to meet its debt obligations in full and on time. The major global credit rating agencies — known as the Big Thre” — are Standard and Poor's (S&P), Moody's, and Fitch. Each agency uses its own methodology, taking into account a country's current financial situation and historical performance. For example, Fitch considers ratings from AAA (highest creditworthiness) to BBB (moderate default risk) as investment-grade, while ratings from BB (elevated default risk) to D (default) are considered speculative. Plus and minus signs indicate relative differences within categories from AA to CCC.

Fitch, S&P Global, and Moody's suspended operations in Russia in spring 2022 and withdrew both sovereign and corporate ratings. At that time, Moody's rated Russia Baa3 — the lowest investment-grade rating before junk status. S&P and Fitch both had Russia at BBB-, the lowest level of investment-grade.

CCXI is China's oldest credit rating agency, founded in 1992. Its CEO Yan Yan announced in June 2023 that the agency was preparing a national credit rating for Russia. According to him, CCXI representatives met with officials from the Russian Central Bank and Finance Ministry to clarify several issues, including the country's shift away from using the US dollar in transactions.

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A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government). It is the practice of predicting or forecasting the ability of a supposed debtor to pay back the debt or default. The credit rating represents an evaluation from a credit rating agency of the qualitative and quantitative information for the prospective debtor, including information provided by the prospective debtor and other non-public information obtained by the credit rating agency's analysts. Credit reporting (or credit score) is a subset of credit rating. It is a numeric evaluation of an individual's credit worthiness, which is done by a credit bureau or consumer credit reporting agency.