The slowdown in second quarter GDP growth confirmed our projection that the second half of 2010 will not be as robust as the first half. In the second quarter annualised growth decelerated ...

With all eyes on next Sunday’s referendum, August was a relatively quiet month on the economics front, but we thought a quick rundown on major developments could be useful. Fiscal ...

The record heat wave that hit Russia from early July to mid-August caused havoc for the agriculture and consumer markets. Temperatures hovered between 30°
C to 40°C
in Russia’s major ...

Since our last writing on the September 12th referendum outcomes, which made the ratification call, the pro-ratification momentum appears to have stalled. In fact, two polls claim ...

In July, current account balance resulted with negative numbers. Depressed export and seasonal import growth caused CA deficit last month. Falling metallurgy and agriculture sales ...

The Philippine economy still performed at high gear in 2Q2010 as export recovery, national elections and reconstruction spending combined to pull up national output. At 7.9%, the country’s ...

Many main indicators continue to show weakening signs: fixed asset investment slowed to 21.5% in July from 22.2% in June; industrial output fell to 17% from 17.6%; and consumer spending ...

Industry Mitigates Growth. In July, industry continued declining growth trend. Last month the industrial output resulted only with 6.4% YoY after 8.9% YoY a month ago. Money Supply ...

On a quarter-on-quarter (q/q) seasonally adjusted basis, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth during the second quarter of 2010 (Q2 2010) moderated to an annualised rate of 3.2%....

As expected, the Monetary Policy Committee left the policy rate (one-week repo rate) unchanged today at 7%, simple. The language was very similar to that in the previous statement,

A possible rejection of the recently legislated constitutional amendment package on the September 12th referendum poses the most immediate risk to Turkish political stability, followed ...

Crisis, What Crisis? The clash between the generals and the AKP government during the August 1-4 High Military Tribunal (HMT) meeting has unsettled the markets, raised fears of a ...

Q2-2010 was more positive than the beginning of the year. The pace of growth of the Russian economy picked up to 5.4% y-o-y (compared to 2.9% in Q1-2010). Consumer demand and business ...

China’s GDP grew 10.3% yoy in Q2 2010, a significant dip from Q1’s 11.9%. Since there were signs of overheating earlier this year, we should read the drop-off as a positive development: ...

After a year of deep recession, the banking sector has finally begun to slowly revive. But the system still faces serious problems, mostly due to the newly-nationalized banks. Although ...

It has only been a little over a month since Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III became president. Understandably, expectations still run high and market mood remains upbeat. The peaceful ...

State-Owned Enterprises (Soes) Are Drifting Towards Inefficiency, Poor Governance and Are Almost On The Brink Of Undermining Economic Development. In any economy, public utilities ...

The first half of 2010 rebound in major economic activity continues to cast doubt on whether the current path to a full economic recovery is sustainable. In this regard it should be ...

Consumer prices dropped by a slightly more than expected 0.5% in July (vs. market consensus of some 0.3%), taking the 12-month rate to 7.6%, from 8.4% in June. This is primarily driven ...

The Army is once again the center of a controversy between the secularists and conservatives, even though our base case scenario is another temporary cease-fire. In bad case scenarios,

On July 28, the International Monetary Fund finally approved new stand-by program with Ukraine. The decision was quite predictable since promptly after staff-level agreement on July ...

In June, both current and financial accounts remained positive. Current account balance equaled to $195 million. Major inflow was observed in services. In particular, revenues from ...

GDP growth slowed in H1, and fell to 10.3% in Q2 from 11.9% in Q1. It’s likely that the government-encouraged pullback in lending is a significant factor behind the slowing trend. ...

The Central Bank released its July Inflation Report today. There was no surprise in the Report, in which both inflation forecast (for end-2010) and the rate outlook (through 2011) ...

Mixed Reviews. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III made his first state-of-the-nation address (SONA) yesterday as the Philippines’ brand new president. Delivered in the native language, ...