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UPCOMING WEBINAR - TURKEY: FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE OR BUSINESS AS USUAL?...

No rating action, no new report from Moody's yesterday
HUNGARY · In Brief · 04 May 2019

A certain part, though probably not the majority, of the market may be disappointed by the fact that Moody's did not take any action on their Baa3/Stable sovereign rating for Hungary at their pre-announced revision date yesterday. Moreover, Moody's did not even pick up the issue, missing the oppo...

South Africa’s general elections five days away – here are the latest pollsters results
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 03 May 2019

The South African economy has had difficulty recovering from its lackluster growth for a decade, and leadership (governance) and policies have played a significant role in this. The direction the economy will take from here largely depends on the outcome of the general elections that are less tha...

Duque, the Freshman
COLOMBIA · Report · 03 May 2019

The corruption scandals surrounding Ruta del Sol II have created all sorts of problems for the unrelated fourth generation (4G) program. The most important was the realization that, when nullifying a contract due to a concessionaire’s proven corruption, the rules applicable to companies providing...

Clothing, transportation drive inflation lower
TURKEY · Report · 03 May 2019

In April, consumer prices rose by 1.7%, m/m, notably lower than the market consensus of around 2.3% (and our forecast of just over 2%), taking the 12-month CPI inflation down to 19.5% from 19.7% in March. But domestic-PPI inflation showed a strong monthly increase of 3%, on the back of a weaker l...

Medina’s re-election push loses steam
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · Report · 02 May 2019

President Danilo Medina’s re-election prospects took a dramatic turn for the worse in April, dimming so significantly that his candidacy now looks unlikely to regain momentum. Unless he does the improbable (by seeking a constitutional reform against all odds, thereby risking his PLD party’s unity...

The President ups the game in “stamping out corruption"
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 02 May 2019

​After being elected as the new leader of South Africa’s governing party ANC (December 21, 2017) and being sworn in as the fifth democratic President of the nation (February 15, 2018), Cyril Ramaphosa pledged to fight corruption and support economic revival. Indeed, this has been his aim since th...

Trump visit and Bahceli outburst
TURKEY · In Brief · 02 May 2019

Turkish politics is getting more complicated by the minute, which is reducing visibility and raising risk premiums. To say the last thing first, regardless of the High Election Council(HEC) ruling on Istanbul elections, I expect this state of affairs to continue through summer months. Apropos Ist...

Oil and gas prices set for possible volatility
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 01 May 2019

At the Belt and Road Forum it was announced that 30% of Novatek's Arctic LNG will go to Total, a CNPC subsidiary and CNOCC. These three companies will get 10% apiece. Total's share was known before the forum. Novatek's Arctic LNG will therefore be mostly Russian owned. Saudi Aramco had hoped to b...

​Indonesia: Waiting for the final count
INDONESIA · Report · 01 May 2019

Immediately after the people cast their votes on April 17, 2019, there was a short period of uncertainty, after one presidential candidate claimed his victory several times in the race for the presidency. Acting as a real statesman, President Jokowi gave a short speech, in which in general he wel...

Industrial output rebounds
CHINA · Report · 30 Apr 2019

The Chinese economy began to rebound in Q1, with GDP up 6.4% y/y, flat on Q4 2018. Industrial output was up 6.5% y/y, up 0.8 pps from Q4. Then in March, GDP rose a powerful 8.5% y/y, up 1.4 pps from Q4, to its fastest growth rate since August 2014. Investment, up 6.3% y/y, showed no clear tre...

The MNB will start to buy corporate bonds in July
HUNGARY · In Brief · 30 Apr 2019

Pretty much as we predicted yesterday (and others slightly earlier), the Monetary Council left all MNB interest rates untouched today, in addition to saying nothing new about the prospective use of FX swaps to tighten liquidity. Moreover, they made absolutely no mentioning of any need to tighten ...

CBRT: Evasive, unconvincing
TURKEY · In Brief · 30 Apr 2019 · 1 response

The CBRT released the year's second Inflation Report today. The 2019 year-end CPI-inflation forecast was kept at 14.6% (midpoint of 12.1%-17.1% band), so was the 2020 year-end forecast -- at 8.2% (midpoint of 5.1%-11.3% band). As usual, the Bank sees inflation slowing to the official target of 5%...

Russian companies raising wages
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 30 Apr 2019

Korn Ferry has shown that most Russian firms plan to increase wages in 2019. The working population is falling therefore employers are obliged to bid for workers. Topline inflation is currently 5.2% and wages hikes are forecast to average 4.5%.In the tech sector labor is a seller's market not a b...

Economics: April data confirms a slowing trend
MEXICO · Report · 29 Apr 2019

With the coincident index accelerating its downtrend of the past nine months and the leading indicator also slipping lower, numerous multilateral international institutions and analysts have continued to scale back their estimates of Mexican GDP growth, as have domestic authorities including Banc...

Politics: Missteps and looming crises
MEXICO · Report · 29 Apr 2019

As President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is faced by the usual dynamics of any new administration – confronted with a situation considerably more complicated than the new head of state and other incoming officials had anticipated, the commission by new officials of numerous unforced errors, and s...