VENEZUELA - Report 27 Apr 2015

In coming days President Maduro will be announcing the minimum wage increase for May 1, Labor Day. The government’s urgency to regain public support ahead of the elections will lead to stronger and more frequent minimum wage increases this year.

Our base case for 2015 is that Maduro wi...

CHINA - Report 27 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

GDP growth hit a new low in Q1, with its 7% y/y rise just a 0.3 pp uptick from Q4 2014. Value added for major industrial firms rose only 6.4% y/y, down 1.2 pps from Q4. Industrial output growth took the biggest hit, falling to 5.6% y/y in March.

Retail sale...

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - In Brief 27 Apr 2015

Yesterday, the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) elected its Presidential nominee for the 2016 general elections. According to the second bulletin released by the National Organizing Commis...

ARGENTINA - In Brief 27 Apr 2015 2 responses

In yesterday’s simultaneous primary election (PASO) in the City of Buenos Aires, Horacio Larreta, Macri’s favorite, won the PROs primaries, with a significant difference ahead of his direct competitor, Gabriela Michetti, or any other candidates from different parties, for that mat...

TURKEY - Forecast 26 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

Ceteris paribus turned out to be a pretty bad assumption to make, with Turkey underperforming its peers significantly so far in the year despite the boon of a sharply dropping oil price. Post-election uncertainties that have begun to dawn on investors and the...

UKRAINE - In Brief 25 Apr 2015

Last week we witnessed very interesting event. On Thursday April 23 Kyiv was flooded with thousands of people of strange appearance which called themselves miners. From news releases we learned that ‘...

HUNGARY - In Brief 23 Apr 2015

That the MNB reduced its base rate by 15 bps to 1.8% on April 21 was almost a non-event in the sense that essentially everyone on the market expected exactly this. That the rate cut had absolutely no immediate impact on the EURHUF exchange rate, which has been stuck in a narrow 297-302 rang...

CENTRAL AMERICA - Report 23 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

The outlook for El Salvador´s economy is still bleak, despite minor improvements in certain variables amid favorable external conditions.Real GDP is expected to grow 2.3%-2.5% in 2015 and 2016. That’s a bit of an improvement over previous years, but insufficient to ...

BRAZIL POLITICS - Report 23 Apr 2015

Quick Snapshot

• Impairment of 44 billion reais, or 14.8 billion dollars
• 6.2 billion reais ($2.1 billion) due to corruption
• R$ 199 billion worth of contracts analyzed to calculate loss from corruption
• Net loss of R$21 billion
• Disc...

TURKEY - In Brief 23 Apr 2015

It is encouraging to see that Turkish media is paying greater attention to parties' election manifestos to judge their fitness for power; it is to be hoped that the electorate would do the same. We have already covered AKP’s 400 plus page behemoth wh...

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 23 Apr 2015

Should we be worried that Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla has resigned? After all, Mr. Sevilla, who was appointed in late 2013, is credited with the impressive 21% growth in import duty collections last year that helped to raise the o...

TURKEY - Report 22 Apr 2015

Today, the Monetary Policy Committee kept all interest rates unchanged (Graph 1) and tweaked macro-prudential ratios a little, all as expected. The latter involved raising interest rates on TL-based required reserves by 50 bps and reducing the rate charged on F/X borrowings of banks from the CBRT...

MEXICO - Report 21 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

The rising sense of frustration over reports of graft, influence peddling, and the political system in general, will undoubtedly find specific forms of expression as the public’s patience will presumably grow thinner given the appalling lack of sensitivity official...

MEXICO - Report 21 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

On the last day of March, the Ministry of Finance sent the Mexican Congress a document entitled “2015 Economic Policy Pre-criteria” that offers an analysis of the current state of the economy. It also updates the macroeconomic framework anticipated for 2015-2016 an...

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Report 21 Apr 2015

Executive Summary

The IMAE for January and February shows that growth, though still strong, is slowing. Inflation in March reached 0.14%, and accumulated inflation in Q1 was only 0.16%, while y/y inflation continues to decline.

Monetary policy remains tight, though at the end...