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UPCOMING WEBINAR - NORTH AMERICA TRADE WAR: IMPLICATIONS FOR MEXICO...

Successful regulation of P2P defaults in China
CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 02 Apr 2018

China’s regulators have instituted stricter rules on the financial system. In online finance, they have effectively restricted the growth of peer-to-peer lending (P2P). This has helped to reduce the number of P2P defaults and is an example of how regulators are increasingly able to reduce risk in...

Falcón’s very fine line
VENEZUELA · Report · 01 Apr 2018 · 1 response

With seven weeks to go before the presidential election, Henri Falcón’s campaign has failed to lift off. The only way he can win is by presenting himself as moderate enough to win over certain factions of the Nicolás Maduro regime and minimize their exit cost but radical enough to persuade opposi...

Would you bet on Trump?
TURKEY · Report · 01 Apr 2018

President Trump announced that he wants GIs out of Syria as soon as possible, which may or may not be an official policy pronouncement. If the US does indeed withdraw from Syria, Turkey’s conflict with its powerful NATO ally would decline to manageable levels, mitigating the possibility of damagi...

Investors… On your marks, get set…
CHILE · Report · 30 Mar 2018

​February’s figures confirmed that inflation is low and will stay low and that inflationary pressures retreated. In addition, Inflation will fluctuate around 2% until July and will stay below 3% for the next two years. In its March quarterly Monetary Policy Report (IPOM in Spanish), the Central B...

Temer Administration
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 30 Mar 2018

This Thursday (29), the Federal Police arrested several individuals that are closely tied to President Michel Temer (MDB). businessman and lawyer José Yunes, one of the owners of Rodrimar, Antonio Celso Grecco, former minister of Agriculture Wagner Rossi and Coronel João Batista de Lima Filho, kn...

Changing the guard of the Central Bank
INDONESIA · Report · 30 Mar 2018

A few weeks ago, one of the hot issues in Indonesia was the term of the Central Bank Governor, which was about to expire in May this year. Initially, it was almost taken for granted that Agus Martowardoyo would get an extension for a second term. However, the issue came up when Dr. Perry Warjiyo,...

The worst is over! Is it?
ARGENTINA · Report · 29 Mar 2018

In President Macri´s speech during the opening of the congressional session, he stated that the worst (of the economic reforms) is over, and that the government has set the foundations for sustained growth. He recently implied as much when he announced the decline in poverty and unemployment. In ...

GUATEMALA: Stability, but with structural problems
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 29 Mar 2018

The 2018-2019 economic outlook for Guatemala shows both stability and structural problems. The country will continue to grow at a moderate rate, of 2.9%-3.5%. But that’s insufficient to pull the population out of poverty. Inflation will stay within the Central Bank’s 3%-5% target range, and the ...

A changing political landscape
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · Report · 29 Mar 2018

The political landscape is changing: the opposition seems to be strengthening, internal struggles have paralyzed the PLD, President Medina’s approval ratings, while still high, have been declining, and the odds of his third nomination (banned by the Constitution) have weakened in recent months. H...

​“Unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated...”
TURKEY · Report · 29 Mar 2018

The Turkish economy expanded at a faster than expected 7.3% rate in Q4, y/y (1.8%, q/q, work-day and seasonally-adjusted). Together with some upward revisions to previous data, growth was a stellar 7.4% for 2017 as a whole, up from 3.2% in 2016 (Table 1). In terms of expenditure contributions (ou...

Political turmoil amid healthy economic growth
PANAMA · Report · 28 Mar 2018

Panama continued the path of solid economic growth during 2017 at 5.4%, which coincided with our projection published in February and later ratified in October. This GDP growth was primarily explained by the dynamics of the external-oriented activities (Panama Canal, ports, air transportation) an...

A timely interest rate cut by the South African Reserve Bank
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 28 Mar 2018

Following a single 25-basis point cut in the benchmark interest rate in 2017 (during the Monetary Policy committee MPC’s July meeting), the South African Reserve Bank has decided to reduce the repo rate for the first time in 2018 by another 25 basis points. This places the repo rate at 6.5% and t...

Peru Conference Call: Continuity or change under a new president?
PERU · Report · 28 Mar 2018

Will PPK's resignation and Martin Vizcarra's accession to the presidency change the perspectives for Peru's needed reforms? What will Vizcarra be able to accomplish during the remainder of his term? Will the country's political instability begin to impact its economic stability? Discussion abo...

Iván Duque: A star on the rise?
COLOMBIA · Report · 28 Mar 2018

Senator Iván Duque, the leading presidential candidate and a member of Alvaro Uribe’s Centro Democrático, recently presented his ideas about Colombia’s future in Washington and New York. He spoke eloquently in English, but in bumper-sticker style: his comments on justice, corruption, economics, o...

Growth targeted at about 6.5%
CHINA · Report · 28 Mar 2018

Prime Minister Keqiang Li announced during a March 5th address to the People’s Congress of Beijing that China’s growth target for 2018 would be about 6.5%, the same as in 2017, when growth reached 6.9%. The yuan will be “basically stable” at a reasonable level, Li also predicted. More local gover...