INTERNATIONAL credit rating agency, Fitch Ibca, on Monday affirmed its “BB” long-term foreign currency rating for South Africa. It also confirmed the country’s short-term foreign currency rating of “B” and long-term local currency at “BBB”. The agency said although, South Africa had had a difficult year in 1998, facing large outflows of foreign capital, a sharp depraciation in the rand and virtually no economic growth, it did manage to avoid the sharp fall in output and rise in bad debt and bankruptcies suffered by many other emerging markets. This, it said, was thanks mainly to the strength and sophistication of its own banking system.