BRAZIL POLITICS - Report 21 Mar 2014

Desire for change challenges Dilma’s lead On Thursday evening, March 20, Ibope released a presidential voting intention poll. The poll, conducted on March 13-17, presented practically the same results as the previous poll from November. However, even though President Dilma has a comfortable lead ...

TURKEY - In Brief 21 Mar 2014

Sometimes one sentence- more than many scholarly articles- sums up the political situation in a country. As of today, for Turkey, that sentence has become “Twitter is banned”. Less than 24 hours after Erdogan promised in a vocal rage the ban “the twitter and like”, courts obliged, granting Turkey...

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 20 Mar 2014

The BSP took its cue from the US Fed and signalled today a prospective rate hike when the Monetary Board meets next week. The Fed earlier indicated that it may move forward the timetable for ending its stimulus program, with markets projecting a rate hike as early as April 2015 (from July previou...

MEXICO - Report 20 Mar 2014

Executive Summary Now that the first phase of the structural reform process is complete, attention has shifted back toward more immediate concerns, especially the extent to which the economy is likely to grow in 2014. In previous issues of Weekly Trends: Mexico Economy we have argued that GDP gro...

TURKEY - Report 18 Mar 2014

As expected, there was no surprise in today’s Monetary Policy Meeting decision, which left all interest rates unchanged: weekly repo at 10% and the O/N band at 8%-12 (Graph 1). In terms of the statement’s content, there was also not much new, with the main emphasis of the statement remaining on i...

VENEZUELA - Report 18 Mar 2014

Sicad II will begin operating soon under Foreign Exchange Agreement (CC) 27[1]. Individuals and companies will be able to buy and sell foreign currency and dollar-denominated securities at a price that will reflect market conditions and, more importantly, intervention by BCV and Pdvsa. Sicad II w...

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 18 Mar 2014

Today President Vladimir Putin made a special address in front of deputies of the State Duma and Federation Council, heads of regions today in Kremlin. The speech is a public justification and backing of Crimea to join Russia after the referendum of March, 16. The address was shown live by major ...

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Report 18 Mar 2014

Executive Summary President Danilo Medina scored more points with his February 27th mandatory speech to Congress. The respected polling firm Newlink Research found that87% of the public was either very satisfied (65%) or somewhat satisfied (22%) with his presentation, while just 13% of respondent...

BRAZIL ECONOMICS - Report 17 Mar 2014

Inflation had been decelerating, declining from 6.7% in June 2013 to 5.6% in January 2014, but the 0.69% increase of the IPCA in February ended this more favorable period, putting the rate over the past 12 months at 5.7%. The tendency from now on is for oscillation around the upper bound of the t...

COLOMBIA - In Brief 17 Mar 2014 7 responses

Datexco published a new poll on March 16th, showing again that President Santos is expected to get the most votes in the May 25th presidential election (25.5%), but not enough to avoid a run-off three weeks later. However, two other results are surprising. The first one is that Enrique Peñalosa s...

BRAZIL ECONOMICS - Forecast 17 Mar 2014

Executive Summary A combination of wishful thinking and diagnostic mistakes has put the government in a situation, in an election year, of weak economic growth and high inflation. The outlook for 2014 is weaker GDP growth than last year, of only 1.5%, and inflation rising to around 6.3% at year-e...

BRAZIL POLITICS - Report 17 Mar 2014

The week begins with the new ministers’ taking office. The government will face an important test this week in its crisis with the allied base. Congress will analyze 12 presidential vetoes, among them the veto of the bill that establishes the criteria for the creation, incorporation, merger and d...

UKRAINE - In Brief 16 Mar 2014

No surprises, official exit-poll (only one which was allowed) reported almost unanimous (93%) support to merging with Russia. The Crimean officials report 75% participation rate while leader of Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Jamilev reports that real participation rate does not exceed 30%. Observers rep...

TURKEY - Report 16 Mar 2014

Executive Summary By taunting his detractors even at their saddest moments, PM Erdogan is inviting a Gezi-II after the March local elections. Meanwhile, the KCK, the pro-secessionist Kurdish umbrella organization, announced that it would no longer negotiate with AKP to settle the Kurdish problem....

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 14 Mar 2014

At today’s regular meeting CBR’s Board of Directors decided to keep key rate at 7.0% citing ‘limiting inflationary consequences of recent FX rate changes and supporting financial stability’ as major reasons. On March 3, 2014 key rate was increased 150 b.p., from 5.5% to 7.0% on the back increased...