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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Brazil bans Sputnik V as contaminated
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 29 Apr 2021

On April 29 Brazil's health regulator said that the Russian vaccine carried a virus that causes the common cold. Brazil doubted the integrity of the manufacturing process. It seems the problem is one of quality control and not all doses of Sputnik V are defective.Russia vigorously disputed the al...

Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev replaced with his ex-colleague Yuriy Vitrenko, one more concern for the IMF prospects
UKRAINE · In Brief · 29 Apr 2021

We have another discouraging piece of news from our leadership. The Cabinet fired CEO of Naftogaz Andriy Kobolev, openly ignoring the independence of the supervisory board of the company. The Cabinet leveraged a legal trick to remove Kobolev. The head of the management board could be fired only w...

Inflation report: optimistic and elusive
TURKEY · Report · 29 Apr 2021 · 2 responses

The CBRT has released the second Inflation Report of the year, which, of course, was Governor Sahap Kavcioglu’s first report presentation, where he read prepared remarks including, oddly enough, during the Q&A session. In the report, the Bank, raised its inflation forecast for end-2021 by 2.8 ...

Tajik and Kyrgyz soldiers open fire on each other
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 29 Apr 2021

On April 29 soldiers fired at each other across the Tajik-Kyrgyz Border. There have been clashes between local civilians for years. 4 Kyrgyz soldiers have been wounded.Tajik Ministry of the Interior troops were accused of using mortars. There is a Tajik water distribution facility called Golovnoi...

The Covid CPI to discuss Health Minister testimony, and the STF to discuss tax and patents cases
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 29 Apr 2021

Today, the Senate’s Covid Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry (CPI) meets to discuss several motions to summon people to testify before the Committee. Testimonies should begin next week, with former Ministers Henrique Mandetta and Nelson Teich on Tuesday, Eduardo Pazuello on Wednesday and current ...

​Lockdown watch (5)
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 29 Apr 2021

Last night, President Rodrigo Duterte extended the quarantine status of NCR+ (mECQ) by two weeks to May 15. The decision followed two weeks of improving covid19 statistics that saw active cases falling by half since mid-April to less than 70k, albeit still over 2.5x pre-surge levels in February. ...

Ukrainian oil and gas company
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 29 Apr 2021

On April 28 the head of Naftogaz was fired. Nafotgaz had a poor 2020. The company lost USD 684 million in 2020. This was due to low prices but also debt problems. In 2019 it made a profit of USD 94 million. Bizarrely, the company paid USD 5 billion in tax in 2020, making it the country's single b...

Apple fined USD 12 million by Moscow
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 28 Apr 2021

On April 28 the IT company was fined in a case where Kaspersky was the plaintiff. Kaspersky is a Russian cybersecurity company.Apple was declared to have exploited its market dominance in the manner in which it distributed mobile apps on the iOS operating system. This led to an unfair advantage f...

Provisional measures published, and Covid CPI installed
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 28 Apr 2021

Today, the president’s provisional measures (MPs) were published in the Official Gazette of the Federal Government (DOU). The Pronampe (which helps small and medium-sized companies) and BEm (which allows for the reduction of wages and working hours of private sector employees) programs should be ...

SAUDI ARABIA: Highlights from MBS’s remarkable interview
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 28 Apr 2021 · 1 response

In a 90-min interview marking the 5th anniversary of his Vision 2030 strategy, MBS made major announcements on taxes (VAT will be reduced, there will be no income tax) and financing (Aramco may raise about $19bn selling equity to a "global energy company" and the 2030 target for PIF's assets has ...

The second wave
CHILE · Report · 27 Apr 2021

February’s IMACEC was positive. The 12-month variation of the seasonally-adjusted non-mining IMACEC increased from -0.1% in January to 0.7%, which implies a return to pre-pandemic levels. In both March and April, economic activity likely fell, due to the return of quarantines. The hope is that th...

No policy change, no surprise at today's Monetary Council
HUNGARY · In Brief · 27 Apr 2021

The regular monthly rate-setting meeting of the Monetary Council was held today, and it came out exactly as expected, with no policy change and no notable novelty brought up by the communiqué. So if analysts (like us) fail to generate any meaningful story around this event, it may not be their fa...

Kazakhstan starts using local vaccine
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 27 Apr 2021

On April 26 Kazakhstan's health minister became the first person to be injected with QzVac. 50,000 doses have been produced by a state lab. The population is 19 million, so many more doses are needed. Some people have already been vaccinated with Sputnik V. Only 5% of the population has been vacc...

Imports rally
CHINA · Report · 27 Apr 2021

GDP was up 18.3% y/y in Q1, and up 10.3% from Q1 2019, with an annualized growth rate of around 5%. In this report, we mostly use Q1 2019 as the benchmark period, because the major shock from the pandemic in February 2020 makes Q1 2020 data hardly comparable. The adjusted growth rate was lower th...

Edging forward
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 27 Apr 2021

Opacity in political conditions in El Salvador continued during April, the last month of the current Congress. What happens from May on, when the official party will be dominant in Congress, remains to be seen. The ample majority obtained by the president’s New Ideas party and its allies in the F...

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