CHINA - Report 24 Sep 2021

Growth has weakened, especially in services. In August, industrial output grew 5.3% y/y, and was up 11.2% from August 2019, with an annualized growth rate of 5.4%, down 0.2 ppts from July, and down 1.2 ppts from Q2. The service production index has slowed since Q2, and grew only 4.8% y/y in Augus...

SOUTH AFRICA - Report 24 Sep 2021

Continuing with its trend of not altering interest rates since it cut them by 25 basis points at its July 2020 meeting, the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) once again voted to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.5%. With the repo rate at 3.5%, the ...

GULF COUNTRIES - Report 24 Sep 2021

A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * MBS hosted a casual bro's gathering in Neom for Qatar’s Emir and MBZ’s brother. Ministers from Qatar and Turkey also participated in a meeting in Dubai in a further sign of the regional de-escalation trend. * There were fu...

BRAZIL POLITICS - Report 24 Sep 2021

The Administrative Reform proposal can now be put to a vote in the Plenary of the House, which should take place next week. There are currently 7 votes against the taxation of tax returns and 1 vote in favor. As a complementary law, the fiscal incentives law requires an absolute majority of votes...

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 23 Sep 2021

On September 23 Polish NGOs said that the Polish government is forcing hundreds of illegal immigrants back into Belarus - allegedly where they came from. The Polish authorities are arresting the migrants and then deporting them. Most of them are from Iraq and Iran. They are mostly young men. The ...

ECUADOR - In Brief 23 Sep 2021

Guillermo Lasso will personally present the labor and tax reforms together with other bills to the assembly on Friday, September 24, after socializing their main contents tonight. The government has decided to send these bills together as one economically urgent law. In this fashion, the Assembly...

TURKEY - Report 23 Sep 2021 1 response

In a surprise move of sorts, the CBRT/MPC cut the policy rate (one-week repo) by 100 bps to 18% (simple) today (see chart). We are saying “of sorts”, because even though the “revealed” consensus was one of no rate-cut, everyone, including this author, was nervous that a premature rate cut could f...

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 23 Sep 2021

The Russian industrial output continued to grow in August relatively fast y-o-y as in 8M21, and in August alone, it was up by 4.5% and 4.7% accordingly. As it happened every month in the past, Rosstat revised up previously published data for July and at the same time reported that seasonally adju...

BRAZIL POLITICS - Report 23 Sep 2021

Deputy Maia included all three branches of government in his report. Voting on the text may be concluded today in the Special Committee, and the text will then go to the House for further analysis in the coming days. Deputy Diego Andrade (PSD-MG) was elected president of the Special Committee on ...

VENEZUELA - In Brief 23 Sep 2021

Maduro: let’s talk about SDRs In response to a proposal put forth by the Maduro government, the agenda for the September 24–27 session of the Mexico talks will include the issue of access to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) recently assigned to Venezuela. By pro...

TURKEY - In Brief 22 Sep 2021

For decade or so, I and Turkey commentators viewed Turkey through the lens of Erdogan’s eye. This was rational, as he completely dominated the political scene, outmaneuvering the opposition and deciding the national agenda in every sense of the world. I claim the end of the Erdogan Era is drawing...

JAMAICA AND THE BAHAMAS - In Brief 22 Sep 2021 1 response

It is useful to look further at whether the recent Moody's ratings downgrade signifies any material change in The Bahamas position since my "Thunderball" pre-election note.1) Was the downgrade due to the election result? - Not very likely. The rating meeting occurred the day before the election a...

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 22 Sep 2021

This week the Finance Ministry offered the market a preliminary fixed amount of OFZ (R15 bln), the first time since the middle of July. During the previous auctions, the supply was not limited and the borrower made the decision regarding the size of the placement after collecting the orders. Toda...

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - Report 22 Sep 2021

As time goes by, Russia is still among the least vaccinated countries in the world, and the vaccination process in the country remained slow in August and September – only 32.3% of Russians had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and 28.2% were fully vaccinated as of September 22. The daily ...

HUNGARY - Report 22 Sep 2021

The 4th wave of Covid is now definitely underway, as expected. Despite similarities to last September’s developments, it has become more difficult to measure the true size and dynamics of the epidemic, as widespread vaccination made the identification of infected people more difficult than it use...