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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Russia cuts key rate
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 14 Dec 2019

On December 13 the Russian Central Bank announced that the key rate would be reduced to 6.25%. There have been five cuts in a row. The Governor of the Bank Elvira Nabiullina said that she might not cut the rate next time because there is a limit to how low it is wise to go. The RUB rose by 1% whe...

Future trends, past scribblings
TURKEY · Report · 13 Dec 2019

In this last full report of the year, we have opted for a novel format of sorts. The politics author, being the visionary of the Global Source Partners Turkey team, looks ahead and identifies 11 trends that will change the face of Turkey in the next 11 years. The econ author being the boring, cha...

Russia in Africa: strategic steps
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · Report · 13 Dec 2019

The Russian Government and Russian state companies are becoming ever more eager to expand their presence in Africa. Arms deals, energy contracts, political expertise and military assistance are all sought by several African countries. What does Russia have to offer these African states? Russia...

Eskom and electricity cuts are once again sabotaging South Africa’s economy
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 13 Dec 2019

The South African economy is once again being sabotaged by Eskom. This is because on top of the substantial financial burden the state owned entity (SOE) has been placing on the fiscus, Eskom resumed its infamous scheduled power cuts, normally referred to as “load shedding”, in the past week. Wha...

New program contingent on prior actions, the IMF spokesman says
UKRAINE · In Brief · 13 Dec 2019

Yesterday, on Dec 12 Gerry Rice, Director of the Communications Department of the IMF made an interesting comment on Ukraine at the traditional IMF Press Briefing. He mentioned about prior actions that should be delivered by Ukraine before the Executive Board might approve new program for the cou...

The NBU slashes prime rate by 200 bps down to 13.5%
UKRAINE · In Brief · 12 Dec 2019

The NBU Board decided to cut prime rate by 200 basic points down to 13.5% from December 13, according to the NBU press-release. Sharp consumer inflation slowdown to +5.1% y/y in November as well as positive news about staff-level agreement with the IMF are behind the decision. More rate cuts are ...

CBRT: Toward single-digit, asap...
TURKEY · Report · 12 Dec 2019

The Monetary Policy Committee reduced its policy rate (one-week repo rate) by 200 bps today, versus a consensus forecast of 150 bps, bringing the cumulative cuts since July to 1200 bps. We are not too surprised because, as we’ve written several times before, the goal here is to get to single-digi...

The December Economic Work Conference
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 11 Dec 2019 · 2 responses

Special points to highlight in this issue: It is too early to say for sure, but it looks like the Economic Work Conference for later this month will settle on a GDP growth target of “around 6 percent”, which I interpret to mean 5.8 percent to 6.0 percent. There has been an enormous amount of deb...

Year-end inflation call: 9,000 percent
VENEZUELA · Report · 11 Dec 2019

Consumer prices in November accelerated somewhat less than we had forecast, the result of Black Friday discounts at retail outlets and gentler-than-expected bolivar depreciation. Hence, we are revising our November inflation forecast to 34 percent from our earlier projection of 40%. We revise...

Ukraine's debt to Russia disputed in London court
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 11 Dec 2019

On December 9 the UK Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Ukraine had to repay a USD 3 billion loan to Russia. The debt matured in December 2015 plus interest. Ukraine maintains it ought to be allowed to challenge the debt. The Court of Appeal found in favor of Ukraine. The issue has been ...

CHILE: Piñera makes more promises
CHILE · In Brief · 11 Dec 2019 · 1 response

As part of the continuing attempts to respond to the long list of political and social grievances that Chile’s protests have brought to the fore, President Sebastián Piñera announced a third package of reforms, this time aimed at combatting ‘abuse’. He promised to forgive debt and interest for ex...

"Normandy" aftertaste: positive
UKRAINE · In Brief · 10 Dec 2019

Ukrainians were closely watching the "Normandy summit" yesterday night. Some expected one more shameful failure by Zelenskiy, while others were sincerely nervous about the performance of the inexperienced president. Both groups have been surprised with what they saw at the summit. Despite that no...

CPI-inflation was marginally stronger than expected in November
HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 Dec 2019

CPI-inflation for November turned out to be just a bit stronger than expected (3.3% from us, 3.35% from the Portfolio.hu consensus). The actual number was 0.1% mom, 3.4% yoy, the latter up from 2.9% in October, on a fuel-price-related base effect, as we pointed that out in a preview note the othe...

Russia banned from major sporting competitions
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 10 Dec 2019

On December 9 the World Anti Doping Agency announced that Russia would not be allowed to take part in most sports competitions for the next 4 years. WADA found that Russia had interfered with data and samples collected to verify that doping was not taking place. This is a blow for Russia. The cou...

Belarus-Russia talks fail
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 10 Dec 2019

On December 8 the presidents of Russia and Belarus met in Sochi. After a few hours of talks no agreement was reached. This bodes ill for Putin's stated plan to achieve full reunification in 2020. Belarus wants to pay the same price for oil and gas as people in Russia pay. Russia does not agree.Af...

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