Services

COUNTRY INSIGHTS

The resumption of investments: At what pace?
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 08 Jan 2018

There are no longer any doubts that Brazil’s economy is recovering, and that its driving force, on the aggregate demand side, is household consumption. Although fixed capital investments grew in the third quarter of 2017 after a long sequence of declines, there are no indications yet of anything ...

Some things to watch for in 2018: Part One
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 08 Jan 2018

Special points to highlight in this issue: • Because China still has debt capacity, GDP growth in 2018 will be broadly equal to whatever Beijing sets as its GDP growth target. It is extremely unlikely, however, that Beijing will set the target at anywhere close to the level that allows regulat...

Political and economic update
TURKEY · Report · 07 Jan 2018

After a jury found former Halk Bank EVP Hakan Atilla guilty of 5 charges, fears of wide-spread fines or sanctions on Turkish banks rose. Ankara, too, seems aware of the danger, reportedly initiating backchannel talks with Washington D.C. to mitigate the damage.The White House is likely to present...

Stability
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · Report · 04 Jan 2018

Very little is left unknown as Putin announced his candidacy in the upcoming March 2018 presidential election while Alexei Navalny was denied registration. No other opposition leaders are putting up a fight because the very predictable outcome is not worth their investment. With no real oppositio...

Government expects the 2017 fiscal deficit below target
HUNGARY · In Brief · 04 Jan 2018

The Economy Ministry released the government's new macro forecast the other day. In this, they estimated the 2017 fiscal deficit at 1.9% of GDP, exactly the same level as the 2016 actual, and conveniently below the 2.4% annual target. An important contribution to this relatively good result was a...

Hakan Atilla found guilty, worst-case scenarios operative
TURKEY · In Brief · 03 Jan 2018

A jury found a former VP of state-owned lender Halkbank, Mr. Hakan Atilla, guilty on 5 charges, including bank fraud and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions law. Judge Richard Berman scheduled Atilla to be sentenced on April 11. He may face 30 years in prison, or more. His lawyers will appeal th...

The systemic risk of private-public partnerships
CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 03 Jan 2018

• Regulatory Arbitrage. China is promoting Private-Public Partnerships (PPP) as the new way to stimulate the economy and bypass restrictions on local debt. • Local Debt. This is implicit debt of local governments. Holders of Rmb1.28 trillion of domestic LGFV bonds and $34.0 billion of foreign LG...

There is no free lunch, Q.E.D.
TURKEY · Report · 03 Jan 2018

Consumer prices rose by a higher-than-expected 0.7% in December, but thanks to base effects (e.g., food), the 12-month rate has eased to 11.9%, from 13% in November. Likewise, producer prices eased to 15.5% in December from 17.3% in November but needless to say, headline inflation remains highly ...

Three wishes for the economy in 2018
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 01 Jan 2018

1. Much more activity under Build Build Build (BBB), government’s massive P8.1 trillion medium-term infrastructure program that has been likened to a battleship that will be hard to stop once it has gathered momentum. The passage of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act puts s...

A nice Christmas gift from the EU Commission
HUNGARY · In Brief · 30 Dec 2017

In our December report, we wrote that the parallel achievement of the government's end-year spending targets, especially to disburse HUF 2500 bn to local beneficiaries under EU development programs in full-year 2017, and compliance with the legal requirement to reduce the gross debt ratio during ...

Sweet and Sour Year End
ARGENTINA · Report · 29 Dec 2017

The year closes with a mix of good and bad data and news. Politically, the government managed to pass its economic agenda through Congress (tax reform, fiscal responsibility, transfer to provinces, social security, financial transaction tax and 2018 budget ), with the support of the traditional P...

Hope of Deliverance
CHILE · Report · 29 Dec 2017

Markets celebrated Sebastian Piñera’s second-round election victory. The peso appreciated and the stock market jumped. We will have to wait a little bit to determine whether this optimism translates into improved business confidence and a pickup in investment. As of November, business confidence ...

​Political power struggle at year end
ARGENTINA · In Brief · 27 Dec 2017

Wednesday night the Government managed to close the year with the approval of the remaining three economic bills which were debated until late night in the Senate. These are: 1) the 2018 budget, 2) the tax reform and 3) the extension of the financial transaction tax. These three laws, together wi...

Ending 2017 with new optimism
INDONESIA · Report · 27 Dec 2017

New optimism has emerged in the period approaching the end of 2017. While in the first half of the year skepticism abounded because of the slow growth in corporate sales of many companies, in Q3 the situation improved a bit. In the last quarter of this year, new optimism was driven by the bright...

Consumption slows down and Panama enters the EU blacklist
PANAMA · Report · 27 Dec 2017

Panama´s economy continues to grow with a real GDP expansion of 5.4% in Q3 and 5.6% from January to September. In YTD terms, growth was driven by transportation and communications, construction, financial intermediation and services to business. The bad news was retail trade: following a 6.1% ...

Copyright 2025 GlobalSource Partners. All rights reserved.