NEWS FLASH

UPCOMING WEBINAR: VENEZUELA - ASSESSING RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES...

Forces Behind the Depreciation of the Real
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 29 Feb 2016

Executive Summary: It is very hard to gauge the tendency of the exchange rate, but the task is easier when the economy is plagued by large risks. In the Brazilian case a close correlation exists between the exchange rate and two risk measures: the CDS quotations and the EMBI-Brazil. In the pas...

A brave monetary bet
ARGENTINA · Report · 29 Feb 2016

Before the start of the new congressional session this Tuesday, for which Macri’s opening speech will probably include the announcement of a bill to be presented regarding the ongoing negotiations with the Holdouts, this report reviews some of the monetary policy modifications implemented so far ...

Credit Contraction and Firms’ Health
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 29 Feb 2016

Fixed capital investments have been falling since the third quarter of 2013, and the steep downward path of demand gives no hope of recovery. The contraction of credit to companies, both for expansion and working capital, is acting in the same direction.

“Supply-Side Reforms” to Cut Overcapacity
CHINA · Report · 29 Feb 2016

Though many statistics are missing because of the Chinese New Year, we are optimistic about the economy, based on available data. In January, monetary policy continued the expansionary trend it began last July. Narrow money, M1, rose 18.6% y/y, up 3.4 pps from December, finally recovering to 2003...

Weekly Tracker: Feb 28-Mar 5
TURKEY · Report · 28 Feb 2016

Executive Summary Presidential spokesperson Mr. Ibrahim Kalin ruled out early elections to resolve the Executive Presidency controversy, but we still believe Turks will face a ballot later in the year. President Erdogan might think his lack of formal power at the top of the totem pole is unsustai...

Forint ended the week on the 'right' side of EURHUF 310
HUNGARY · In Brief · 27 Feb 2016

In our previous post here at GSD on Monday, we predicted that the MNB was likely to make forceful verbal intervention already on the following day, with a view to weaken the forint back above EURHUF 310 from the EURHUF 307-308 levels it held for a few days at that time. Since then, verbal interve...

A Stronger Rebound
INDONESIA · Report · 26 Feb 2016

Encouraging news was reported by The Central Board of Statistics: Indonesian economic growth in Q4 2015 was higher than expected. In Q3 indications of a turning point had emerged but they were not strong enough to ensure a real turnaround. Previously, such a weak turning point later on turned bac...

SA Budget Speech 2016: Minister Heralds a Serious Change of Course
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 26 Feb 2016

SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, hardly a full two months in the job, stood at the Parliament yesterday to deliver the toughest budget of the post-Apartheid era. His budget speech had one over-arching objective and faced many challenges. The strategic imperative was to ward off the looming pro...

Unemployment Slightly Lower but Still Unimpressive
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 25 Feb 2016

The quarterly labor force survey results released by Statistics South Africa show that unemployment declined by 1.0 percentage point during the last quarter of 2015, resulting in an unemployment rate of 24.5%. See Graph 1. This outcome is the result of the number of unemployed people declining by...

Economics: Parsing Labor Market Data
MEXICO · Report · 25 Feb 2016

According to the National Employment Survey (ENOE) for the last quarter of 2015, the total number of people employed grew 2.5% on average in 2015 with the most pronounced increase a 3.5% rise registered for the fourth quarter that marked an extension of a growth trend through the second half of t...

Medina Still Likely to Win in the First Round
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · Forecast · 25 Feb 2016

The Ministry of Finance still hasn’t published or reported data on the 2015 fiscal balance. Data is available to November, and is unreliable for forecasting the closure of the year. Still, we expect the NFPS fiscal deficit to come in slightly over its target under the Budget Law. This year beg...

Politics: The Fight for the Lost World of Mexican Prisons
MEXICO · Report · 24 Feb 2016

The recent riot in Topo Chico prison, in which 49 inmates were killed and another 12 seriously injured, is just the latest in a long history of official neglect and abject conditions prevailing in many correctional facilities throughout Mexico. The specific diagnostic for the Topo Chico facility ...

The problems in banking
INDIA · Report · 23 Feb 2016

A very approximate calculation suggests that perhaps Rs.5.5 trillion are required to bring Indian banking back to the state of health found in February 2008. This is considerably larger than the existing plan at the Ministry of Finance, to infuse Rs.0.7 trillion into public sector banks. We have ...

Not So Quick
VENEZUELA · In Brief · 23 Feb 2016

The foreign exchange measures announced by President Maduro on February 17 are still in the pipeline. Exchange Agreement No. 34 published on February 18 refers to the Simadi rate for exporters announced on February 10. Jesus Faría, minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, said yesterday that a t...

Presidential election: Ibope – Lula has the highest rejection level
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 23 Feb 2016

Ibope conducted a poll (February 13-17) to measure the potential votes and rejection rates of the pre-candidates for the 2019 presidential race. According to the poll, the candidates with the most potential votes (the sum of “Would definitely vote for him/her” and “Could vote for him/her”) are fo...