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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Sberbank trying to buy a stake in a Mail.ru
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 31 Oct 2019

On October 29 Sberbank announced that it is trying to buy 20% of Mail.ru Group. If this goes through then Sberbank would be the second largest voting shareholder in the tech company. The largest in Megadon which is owned by the Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. Gazprombank owns a 35% sta...

How Chinese banks use their offshore dollars
CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 31 Oct 2019

Chinese banks have a significant amount of USD assets. The top four state banks have close to $1 trillion in USD assets and almost $400 billion in USD investments. These dollar assets are held on the balance sheet of the corporate headquarters in China, in addition to the branch offices in the Un...

Finland's EU budget proposal aims at even less funds on cohesion and agriculture
HUNGARY · In Brief · 31 Oct 2019 · 1 response

The political agreement on the EU's 2021-2027 budget framework still seems far away, but at least the positions taken by the various member governments have become clear by now. On the one hand, some of the big donor countries, led by Germany, would want to keep the budget at no more than 0.97% o...

New deregulation measures expected to boost cross-border trade and investment
CHINA · Report · 31 Oct 2019

The economy is showing various signs of weakening. In Q3, GDP grew at a rate of 6% y/y, down 0.2 pps from Q2, and down 0.5 pps from Q3 2018. Industrial output expanded 5% y/y, down 1 pp from Q3 2018. Investment grew 4.7% y/y, down 0.8 pps from Q2. Retail sales of social consumption goods grew ...

Q4 Inflation Report: Paving the way for further cuts
TURKEY · In Brief · 31 Oct 2019

The CBRT released this year's final Inflation Report today. As expected, the 2019 yearend inflation forecast was revised down to 12% (midpoint of 11.2%-12.8% band) from 13.9%, which is also in line with the New Economy Program forecast released earlier. The 2020 yearend forecast remained unchange...

Excellent moves
INDONESIA · Report · 31 Oct 2019 · 1 response

President Joko Widodo announced the line-up of the Indonesian cabinet for 2019-2024 just a few days after his inauguration as president. His selection of ministers truly reflects his courage and independence. From various angles, this new cabinet can be considered a "dream team" because the chall...

LEBANON: Resignation gambit means new Hariri government is needed to avert a crisis
GULF COUNTRIES · In Brief · 31 Oct 2019

The resignation of the Lebanese PM, Saad al-Hariri, is the political wildcard that we were concerned about in our 22 Oct analysis. However, the most likely scenario is that Hariri will actually remain on as prime minister with the authority to rejig the cabinet slightly, including bringing in som...

​Costa Rica: Rodrigo Chaves designated as Finance Minister
CENTRAL AMERICA · In Brief · 30 Oct 2019

Rodrigo Chaves, who was serving as country director of the World Bank Indonesia since August 2003, has been designated today as the new Finance Minister of Costa Rica, to substitute Rocío Aguilar, who resigned last week. Chaves, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Ohio State University, has been ...

Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement reveals a deteriorating fiscus amid low growth and non-stop Eskom bailouts
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 30 Oct 2019

During the past few weeks government has been particularly busy introducing policy and plans that are meant to address many of South Africa’s current economic challenges in the lead up to today’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS). The MTBPS, tabled annually during end-October by the Min...

5 Russian mercenaries killed in Mozambique
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 30 Oct 2019

On October 27 five Russian mercenaries were reportedly killed in an ambush in Mozambique. In September 2019 it is reported that 200 Russian private military contractors from Wagner Group arrived in the African country. It is said that the Russian PMCs are there to fight Islamic extremists. Mozamb...

GUATEMALA: Downside risks rising
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 30 Oct 2019

As Guatemala’s president-elect Alejandro Giammattei and his team prepared to take over the Executive Branch in January, an early October meeting with a visiting IMF mission addressed the state of the economy, and challenges ahead. Though the mission reaffirmed its 3.4% GDP growth estimate for 201...

​US sanctions: Race against time
TURKEY · In Brief · 30 Oct 2019 · 1 response

On Tuesday US House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing the “so called” genocide of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, as well a bill to impose sanctions on Turkey for Operation Peace Spring. It is not certain whether Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will put it, o...

BAHRAIN: Austerity will fall short of targets and more Gulf funding will be needed
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 29 Oct 2019

We don’t think that Bahrain’s ambitious Fiscal Balance Program will come close to its targets due to austerity fatigue and sharply lower oil prices. Instead, the deficit will remain around 5-7% of GDP, and debt-to-GDP will rise to 110% by 2022, requiring about $15bn in financing in 2019-22. B...

CHILE: ​New cabinet, old problem
CHILE · In Brief · 29 Oct 2019

Sebastián Piñera continued with his efforts to address the ten-day old protest movement by announcing a major cabinet shuffle. This was not unexpected. The ouster of Interior Minister (and presidential cousin) Andres Chadwick was one of the principal demands of last Friday’s million-person march....

Xi Jinping versus Deng Xiaoping
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 29 Oct 2019 · 1 response

Special points to highlight in this issue: Although I personally do not expect anything new to come out of the Fourth Plenum, currently in session, that suggests that there will be any change in Xi’s approach to leadership, I can assure my reader that I would have no way of knowing whether or...

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