NEWS FLASH

UPCOMING WEBINAR - CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA: ECONOMIC UPSWINGS AND POL...

Untouchables, The End
COLOMBIA · Report · 05 Aug 2020

On August 4, five Supreme Court (SC) Justices unanimously found enough merits to impose house arrest on former president and current senator Alvaro Uribe. Uribe and his lawyers may have been involved (allegedly) in witness tampering, in a case against him for (allegedly) supporting the creation o...

June retail sales data is a proof of gradual economic recovery
HUNGARY · In Brief · 05 Aug 2020

Retail sales grew by 3.7% mom in June on seasonally adjusted basis, implying a -0.5% yoy number. The latter was much better, of course, than the -3.5% yoy figure seen in May and the -9.5% low point of the year-on-year curve back in April. This kind of recovery seems to have followed the general E...

Synthesis of the Brazilian economy
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 05 Aug 2020

For more than two months, Brazil has been recording more than a thousand Covid-19 deaths daily, with a total so far of 93 thousand deaths and 2.7 million infected people, despite the low levels of testing. Nevertheless, the country continues without a health minister or a national plan to face th...

Costa Rica: CB Macroeconomic Program
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 04 Aug 2020

The Central Bank of Costa Rica released the mid-term revision of the macroeconomic program for 2020-2021 on July 30th. After updating the pandemic evolution, here and abroad, the Bank concludes that the provisional April assumptions on the public health and economic activity consequences don’t ho...

Cármen Lúcia wants explanation about dossier from Ministry of Justice
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 04 Aug 2020

Today, Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) Cármen Lúcia requested an explanation from the Ministry of Justice about a dossier prepared by the Secretariat of Integrated Operations (Seopi) against 579 federal and state civil servants identified as “anti-fascists”.

Russia is ending tax treaty with Cyprus
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 04 Aug 2020

Russia intends to charge 15% tax on dividend payments on money remitted from Russia companies registered in Cyprus. Many Russian companies are registered on the Mediterranean island because of it is tax advantageous.The new tax will assist in paying for the country to recover after COVID-19. The ...

China virus check - week ending August 3, 2020
CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 04 Aug 2020

Our latest data for economic activity in China showed hopeful signs. There appears to be a bottoming out in many measures, such as metro passenger traffic. We added some data on cinema attendance, for which the results are poor. Obviously, many public indoor activities will take a long time to re...

Flash: Congress denies confidence to the new Prime Minister
PERU · In Brief · 04 Aug 2020

This morning Congress approved a no confidence vote on the newly appointed Prime Minister, Mr. Pedro Cateriano. The Constitution mandates that the Prime Minister needs to seek a confidence vote from Congress. In case it is denied, the whole Cabinet need to be reshuffled. President Martin Vizcarra...

Inflation falls, but no cause for celebration
TURKEY · Report · 04 Aug 2020 · 1 response

Consumer prices rose by a lower than expected 0.58% in July, compared with consensus expectation of 0.8%-0.9%, which reduced the 12-month rate to 11.8%, down from 12.6% in June. Domestic-PPI inflation came in at 1%, m/m, with the 12-month rate increasing further to 8.3%, from 6.2% a month ago, at...

Fachin revokes decision that authorized Operation Car Wash to share information
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 03 Aug 2020

The Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin, revoked President of the Court Minister Dias Toffoli’s decision to allow Operation Car Wash to share information with the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR). Now, it is up to Toffoli to decide whether to take the case to the floor of t...

Politics: Lozoya, corruption and show trials
MEXICO · Report · 03 Aug 2020

A longstanding 20th century practice in Mexican government involved administrations arresting, upon taking office, a "big fish" from the preceding government to give the illusion of the new president’s anti-corruption priority objective. Sometime after the case faded from the headlines, the “scap...

Reconfiguration of forces in the Lower House and other weekly topics
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 03 Aug 2020

Minister Paulo Guedes takes part in a public hearing on Tax Reform on Wednesday, August 5. The Judiciary resumes activity this week. In the economy, we highlight the Central Bank meeting to set the benchmark interest rate and the release of the July IPCA results. This week’s Talking Points: ...

Economics: Record declines throughout 2Q20 data
MEXICO · Report · 03 Aug 2020

The economic news released in July depicted a profound deterioration of the economy and projects obstacles to an effective recovery of key economic sectors in the coming months. Preliminary data shows a double-digit contraction in GDP during the second quarter, the deepest on record, with the pan...

​Economic growth in June confirmed a slowdown in the economic contraction.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · In Brief · 03 Aug 2020

At the Monetary Policy Meeting held on July 31, the Central Bank reported that on June 2020 the economy contracted by 7.1% relative to June 2019, a much smaller contraction than the one experienced on May (-13.6%) and April (-29.8%). The question is to what extent will the deceleration of the eco...

Russia’s pandemic and political update: Dull scenery puzzles the audience
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · Report · 03 Aug 2020

In July, Russia’s pandemic situation evolved in the same fashion as a month ago. The number of newly infected people continued to subside, albeit very slowly, while the number of active cases fell from over 245K people in mid-June to around 184K in early August. The number of daily new cases fell...