A large swathe of the Middle East & North Africa (Mena) region became safer in 2012, with risks continuing to ease during Q4. Across the Gulf region, Qatar is four places off tier-one status, the safest of all ranked groupings in Euromoney’s 185-country survey, and the UAE has moved back up into tier two. Jeremy Weltman reports.

Risk levels increased across the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region during the fourth quarter of 2012, as economists continued to take stock of trade and financial linkages to the debt-ridden eurozone, and became more wary of the political and structural elements to the crisis, Jeremy Weltman reports.

All of the G10 countries, with the notable exception of Sweden, saw their risks rise in 2012, according to the latest results from Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey – and not just because of the problems affecting the debt-ridden eurozone sovereigns.

As forint falls, fears over sovereign creditworthiness grow, with the jury out on the pace and composition of fiscal adjustment.

Société Générale reveals the disfigured face of the global economy in the event of a China growth shock, given the country’s unsustainable investment rate – its all-too familiar Achilles heel.

Malaysia and the Philippines saw the largest improvements in overall risk assessment scores of any Asean countries in the Q3 results of the ECR survey – but worsening access to capital markets (ATCM) and bank finance had a negative impact for the region.

France has kept its top rating from Fitch, and the US has suffered the ignominy of a downgrade only from S&P, but both are still in danger of being completely stripped of their triple-A status, according to Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey.