To obtain the overall country risk score, Euromoney assigns a weighting to the nine categories listed below. The best underlying value per category achieves the full weighting (25, 10 or 5); the worst scores zero. All other values are calculated relative to these two. The formula used is the following: a-(a/(b-c)) x (d-c), where a = category weighting; b = lowest value in range; c = highest value in range, d = individual value. For debt indicators and debt in default, b and c are reversed in the formula, as the lowest score receives the full weighting and the highest gets zero.
* Political risk (25% weighting): defined as the risk of non-payment or non-servicing of payment for goods or services, loans, trade-related finance and dividends, and the non-repatriation of capital. Risk analysts give each country a score between 10 and zero - the higher, the better. This does not reflect the creditworthiness of individual counterparties.
* Economic performance (25%): based (1) on GNP figures per capita and (2) on results of Euromoney's poll, where each country's score is obtained from average projections for 2000 and 2001.