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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Brazilianization of Colombia
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025

Should the Central Bank start a new hiking phase for the intervention interest rate? Apparently, this is the prevailing view among many observers of monetary policy. Felipe Campos from Aliaza puts it succinctly: “The pressure is shifting to the Central Bank of Colombia, which is facing this situa...

Surprise surprise
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025

Acrimony will probably surface in the next meeting of market creators with Minfin’s Public Credit director. On Friday, December 19th, there was a secretive $6 billion financing operation with an unknown funding source at an interest rate of 13.5%. This caught both the market makers and the market...

An unwarranted emergency
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 21 Dec 2025

During the press conference convened to announce the Central Bank’s Board decision to keep its policy rate unchanged at 9.25%, something quite unusual happened. Once governor Villar read the press statement agreed upon by the board members, finance minister Avila intervened not to comment the gov...

War of attrition with a focus on oil
VENEZUELA · Report · 21 Dec 2025

After four months of naval deployment with no tangible results, Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela has shifted from military posturing to economic strangulation. By announcing a “total blockade” on sanctioned vessels carrying Venezuelan oil, seizing the tanker Skipper on December 10, slapping sanc...

War of attrition with a focus on oil
VENEZUELA · Report · 21 Dec 2025

After four months of naval deployment with no tangible results, Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela has shifted from military posturing to economic strangulation. By announcing a “total blockade” on sanctioned vessels carrying Venezuelan oil, seizing the tanker Skipper on December XX, slapping sanc...

Surprisingly robust, as remittances lead the way
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 19 Dec 2025

With Costa Rica less than two months away from the February 1 presidential and congressional elections, government candidate Laura Fernández continues to lead in the polls. But given the high proportion of undecided voters, it is still unclear whether the election will be decided in the first rou...

GULF WEEKLY: UAE non-oil growth soars, MGX buys into TikTok, IMF visits Kuwait, Oman-India CEPA signed
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 19 Dec 2025

A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * Brent crude fell below $60 for the first time in nearly five years, despite the US blockade of Venezuela. * China’s foreign minister, visiting Saudi Arabia and the UAE, called for progress on an FTA with the GCC. * Saudi ...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: The Carnegie Paradox; After the surge, CCA currencies move from boom to balance
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 19 Dec 2025

It may only be natural to have my last TOPIC OF THE WEEK for the year attempt a kind of philosophical diversion into, and analysis of, a recent Carnegie Endowment post titled "Passions over Ararat. Why is Pashinyan trying to change the Armenian national identity?" I zoomed in on this piece for a ...

The Joint Budget Committee should vote on the 2026 Budget, Congress should recess today and return on February 2, and the Mercosur-EU agreement may be signed next year
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 19 Dec 2025

Today, the Joint Budget Committee is expected to vote on the 2026 Budget Bill (PLOA 2026). The meeting was originally scheduled for yesterday, but the budget rapporteur, Representative Isnaldo Bulhões (MDB-AL), requested additional time to adjust the budget text. After approval by the committee, ...

Don’t be fooled
COLOMBIA · Report · 19 Dec 2025

The Petro administration will surely trumpet new CARF announcements outlining better-than-expected 2025 fiscal results. The 2025 national central government deficit will be below the 7.6% we and a substantial group of analysts and investors were expecting, and closer to 6.2%. Net NCG debt also im...

Good news on growth and prices, while the ACP increases transfers to the Treasury
PANAMA · Report · 19 Dec 2025 · 1 response

The third-quarter GDP figure published this wekk (3.9%) exceeded our expectations and raises the possibility of full-year growth close to 4.0%, above our 3.6% estimate. Over the first three quarters, cumulative GDP growth reached 4.2%, driven by the same sectors that led the third quarter: transp...

Revenue flow remains uneven across different levels of the consolidated budget
KAZAKHSTAN · In Brief · 19 Dec 2025

The Ministry of Finance released 11M25 budget execution data for various levels of the consolidated budget, including extra-budgetary funds. The consolidated budget showed a surplus of KZT2.5 trillion, compared to the government’s full-year 2025 deficit target of over KZT4.8 trln. Local budgets c...

No news is not always good news
ECUADOR · Report · 18 Dec 2025

Over a month has passed since the political defeat of President Daniel Noboa in the referendum, and there is a sense of a leadership void. This political setback was followed by a series of changes in the president’s cabinet and a 30-day trip that took him to the United States, the Arab Emirates,...

In the final stretch
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 18 Dec 2025

The tone of the Copom Minutes, released yesterday, was somewhat more upbeat in its assessment of the prospective inflation scenario than that conveyed in the Statement following the meeting, but, even so, without elements that would allow us to affirm, as we had come to believe, that the beginnin...

Is 390 the current officially preferred EURHUF rate?
HUNGARY · In Brief · 18 Dec 2025

You know, it is a pretty common disease among analysts to see reason even where there is none. So, maybe we have just fallen prey to this pandemic this time. However, there may be still a story, a sort of conscious calculation to manage the EURHUF exchange rate, behind what we have seen most late...

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