GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

Macri requested Prat-Gay´s resignation today’s. The chief of cabinet, Marcos Peña, also announced that the former Ministry of the Treasury and Finance (Ministerio de Hacienda & Finanzas) will be split in two. On one hand, there will be the Treasury or Ministry of Fiscal Affairs (Ministerio de Hac...

Stability and Progress Targeted for 2017

CHINA · Report · 26 Dec 2016

The economic working meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, chaired by President Xi Jinping, has set next year’s main economic goal: stability and progress. The meeting, which ended on December 16th, was the most important political-economic session of year-end. We view progress not in...

Inconsistent official forecast for wages and GDP

HUNGARY · In Brief · 23 Dec 2016

As a Christmas gift, the MNB and the Economy Ministry presented the investor community with truly optimistic GDP forecasts over the last two days. The MNB said in its new inflation forecast, which was published yesterday, that they expect GDP growth to accelerate from 2.8% in 2016 to 3.6% in 2017...

Chavismo stays in power and the crisis continues

VENEZUELA · Report · 22 Dec 2016

The year will end with Nicolás Maduro still in power, the opposition in crisis, and politics having taken a sharp authoritarian turn. The government’s plan is to cling to power till 2018 by radicalizing as much as possible, from time to time easing up when it deems repression to be unfeasible. ...

The Evolution of the Chinese Debt Burden

CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 22 Dec 2016

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Chinese domestic bond markets performed badly last week, in a foretaste of what we are likely to see in 2017, and probably more than once. * In previous newsletters, I have written about my medium-term outlook for the Chinese economy: until China rea...

Bad Global News

CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 22 Dec 2016

World conditions look uncertain, and less friendly to Central American economies. Global uneasiness has been exacerbated by rising populist movements, and events like Brexit, and the election of Donald Trump. On the positive side, interest rates could continue to gradually climb, along with inter...

End-2016 3-month deposit target achieved, new end-Q1 target does not look very ambitious

HUNGARY · In Brief · 21 Dec 2016

The Monetary Council's rate setting meeting of yesterday did not bring about to any significant surprises, which is a relatively rare occasion in itself. Interest rates were not touched, just as expected. The only interesting decision was the setting of the end-Q1 target for the total accessible ...

Economics: Bigger Problems than Trump

MEXICO · Report · 21 Dec 2016

The rating agency Fitch changed Mexico’s risk outlook last week from stable to negative, citing lower projected growth in the Mexican economy following Donald Trump’s victory at the polls. The Trump factor is, in fact, one of the channels of risk to public finances but it is important to note th...

The de-monetization shock sinks in

INDIA · Report · 21 Dec 2016

Five shocks are playing out: monetary, exports, investment, banking and aggregate demand. The contraction in cash began on November 8 and will worsen until December 31. The shock will gradually be alleviated from January 1 onwards. We estimate that normalcy on cash in circulation will return b...

Politcs: Back to the Barracks?

MEXICO · Report · 21 Dec 2016

In recent weeks National Defense Minister General Salvador Cienfuegos once again publicly vented the military high command’s frustration in recent years over the government’s failure to pass an internal security law that would provide legal protections to military personnel that have been pressed...

Swimming Upstream

PERU · Report · 21 Dec 2016

Education Minister Jaime Saavedra, considered by many the most valuable member of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s (PPK) cabinet, was first impeached, then sacked, by the opposition-dominated Congress. While the supposed reason was corruption over computer purchases by lower-level officials, and...

TPP Pullout Wouldn’t Hurt, But FTA Revision Would Be a Catastrophe

CHILE · Report · 21 Dec 2016

Economic activity continues to be quite depressed. The mining sector is dragging and, beyond seasonal fluctuations, the economy for the first 10 months of the year was flat. While October retail sales figures surprised slightly on the upside, performance remained anemic. But manufacturing produc...

Fire and rain

PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 21 Dec 2016

As the body count from President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war keeps rising – 6000 is the latest number – and the President lately admitting in a BBC interview to have killed 3 people in his Davao days – we are reminded of a long-ago observation that the Philippines has a knack for snatching defeat ...

Why?

VENEZUELA · Report · 20 Dec 2016

The abrupt demonetization of Bs 100 banknote attempted by Maduro has been a disastrous experience. It revealed misconceptions on macroeconomic matters and lack of coordination between government agencies. The government seriously underestimated the challenge of replacing a banknote that accounts ...

MPC Keeps Rates on Hold

TURKEY · Report · 20 Dec 2016 · 1 response

Contrary to the consensus forecast of an already fairly modest 25 bps hike of the O/N lending rate, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) chose instead to stay on hold at today’s meeting, keeping the O/N lending and borrowing rates at 8.5% and 7.25%, respectively, and the one-week repo rate at 8% (...