New data from investment group Bank of America Merrill Lynch reveals that investing in Egypt and South Africa’s sovereign markets is regarded as rather risky.

A map published by the group in its Transforming World Atlas, shows how costly it is to insure investments in markets. The map is based on sovereign credit default swap prices, which is considered insurance against non-payments. The higher the cost, the higher the risk.

This method is used to determine which sovereign markets are likely to default on a loan. To be fair to both countries, most other African nations were not included, although Morocco was – and scored slightly better.

What’s more, South Africa and Egypt are far from the worst places on the map. That dubious honour falls to Venezuela – even South Africa’s BRICS counterparts, Brazil and Russia, are ranked as riskier.

25 August 2015
Image: Gallo/GettyImages