Services

COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Election campaign runs into S-400s
TURKEY · Report · 10 Mar 2019

Turkey and the US stepped towards the ring once again, with Pentagon issuing a final warning to Ankara that the purchase of S-400s is a sanctionable act. Ankara doesn’t take the threat seriously, hoping that Trump will intervene at the last second. Turkey’s relations with the West has taken a tur...

Russia seeks private investment in the Arctic
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 09 Mar 2019

Russia's special representative on Far East Development (Yuri Trutnev) announced that he is in favor of finding new investment regimes to open access to the Artic shelf's oil and gas fields. The Arctic shelf was once estimated to have up to 67% of the oil and gas in Russia's Arctic. At the moment...

February inflation data sends a clear message to the MNB
HUNGARY · In Brief · 09 Mar 2019

The recent uptrend of consumer inflation continued by all existing measures, and it even accelerated, in February. The direction was widely expected but the pace was not. Headline CPI-inflation was 0.6% mom, which pushed the yoy rate back up to 3.1%, following the 2.7% figures recorded in both of...

Prime Minister Cesar Villanueva Resigns
PERU · In Brief · 08 Mar 2019

President Martin Vizcarra accepted the resignation of the president of the council of ministers (also referred to as Premier or Prime Minister) Cesar Villanueva this afternoon. It is rumored that his resignation was prompted by Minister of Finance Carlos Oliva's disagreement on the way that a tru...

Maduro hangs on, but time isn’t on his side
VENEZUELA · Report · 08 Mar 2019

The opposition lost some momentum after a month on the offensive when, on February 23, the Maduro regime used irregular armed groups and formal security forces to block aid shipments from coming in through Colombia and Brazil. With this move, the regime showed that it has no scruples in deploying...

South Africa’s fourth quarter current account balance improved, but deteriorated for 2018 as a whole
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 07 Mar 2019

Data released by the South African Reserve Bank shows that there was a significant narrowing of the country’s current account deficit during the fourth quarter of 2018 from the third quarter as it contracted by R70.2 billion, from R180.4 billion to R110.2 billion. The current account deficit as a...

A cry for re-election?
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · Forecast · 07 Mar 2019

Growth continues to be remarkable, with real GDP rising 7% in 2018. Inflation, at 1.17%, fell significantly below the lower limit of the target range, and financial institutions’ performance was robust. Although the CAD increased to the equivalent of 1.4% of GDP, reserves remained strong, and FX ...

No surprises from the MPC
TURKEY · In Brief · 06 Mar 2019

As expected, the CBRT’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept the policy rate (one-week repo rate) at 24% (simple) today, which was the last meeting before local elections of March 31st. Recall also that this is the fourth consecutive meeting that the Bank left rates unchanged, since it had raised...

The EPP is starting an exclusion procedure against Fidesz
HUNGARY · In Brief · 06 Mar 2019

The European People's Party's management has just announced that it is starting an exclusion procedure against Fidesz immediately, after 13 member parties from nine different countries initiated to exclude PM Orbán's party from the organisation. The EPP's rulebook says that such a procedure must ...

Tepid GDP growth for South Africa in 2018
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 05 Mar 2019

​Despite South Africa’s exiting a technical recession in the third quarter of 2018 when GDP recorded (an upwardly revised) 2.6% q/q growth rate (previously 2.2%), the country’s economic growth remains anemic and still insufficient to make a meaningful dent on unemployment, poverty and inequality....

Guaidó's appointees
VENEZUELA · In Brief · 05 Mar 2019

Guaidó is setting the scene for implementation of Plan País, the interim government’s stabilization program. Protecting Venezuelan assets abroad and securing heavy upfront funding are top priorities and his appointments are steps towards those goals. First, on February 13 the National Assembly ap...

The National People’s Congress: Worrying assumptions about revenue in 2019
CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 05 Mar 2019

China’s annual National People’s Congress provides a window into the thinking of the government about its plans for the year. Both the assumptions and omissions are a valuable tool for forecasting China’s economic trajectory. The Ministry of Finance’s report on the economy outlined by Premier ...

Inflation now within target
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 05 Mar 2019

As we had expected, inflation fell from 4.4% in January to 3.8% in February, within the BSP’s 2-4% target. The month-on-month inflation rate was steady at 0.2, mainly reflecting the impact of higher oil fuel prices, including the contribution of higher excise taxes on oil. Food prices meanwhile c...

Budget Secretary is new BSP Chief
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 04 Mar 2019

In a surprise move, President Duterte last night decided that his budget Secretary, Benjamin Diokno, would be the best man to head the BSP. The Secretary is well regarded as an academic and technocrat whose field of expertise is public finance. Although untested in the area of banking and financi...

New signs of further slowing
MEXICO · Report · 04 Mar 2019

A range of indicators published in recent weeks appears to foreshadow a more significant deceleration of diverse production and aggregate demand components. Industrial production fell an annual 2.5% in December, the sector’s worst percentage variation since November 2009, as the drag of a long de...

Copyright 2025 GlobalSource Partners. All rights reserved.