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Bank of Israel holds rate at 4.5%, maintains hawkish stance
ISRAEL · In Brief · 24 Feb 2025

The central bank of Israel kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4.5% on February 24th, citing elevated inflation (3.8%) and a tight labor market. While the decision was widely anticipated, the central bank adopted a hawkish stance, emphasizing persistent inflation risks driven by geopoli...

Time is the master of reason
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 24 Feb 2025

The appreciation of the Brazilian real at the beginning of 2025, close to 7.6%, partially reversed the exchange rate depreciation process observed throughout last year, which had intensified in December. This movement at the beginning of the year followed the weakening of the U.S. dollar in t...

Politics: Corruption in Morena and the 4T
MEXICO · Report · 24 Feb 2025

Despite the fight against corruption's being the central plank of Morena and the Fourth Transformation, as well as the center of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s narrative, the reality has been quite different. In Transparency International’s recently released Corruption Perception Index 2024, which...

Two bills may be put to a vote in the House, Justice Dino will hold a conciliation meeting this week on parliamentary fund transfers, and a cabinet reshuffle remains on the radar
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 24 Feb 2025

In the Lower House, some important bills are on the agenda. Two bills aimed at facilitating small business exports may be put to a vote: PL No. 4,043/24, which reduces taxes for small exporters, and PLP No. 167/24, which simplifies the refund process for taxes already paid on exported products fo...

Jittery politics, jittery reserves
TURKEY · Report · 23 Feb 2025 · 2 responses

On Friday, the stock market experienced a selling frenzy, largely driven by rumors of Treasury and Finance Minister Simsek’s ouster, or replacement by Mr. Berat Albayrak. The politics author spent the weekend investigating these rumors, concluding they are not credible at all. On the other han...

PM Orbán announced new social policy measures yesterday
HUNGARY · In Brief · 23 Feb 2025 · 1 response

It seems the governing party's campaign for next April's election is already running at full steam. At least, this is the lesson conveyed by PM Orbán's annual evaluation speech (similar to the US president's state of the union speech) held yesterday. On politics, Mr. Orbán saw a "breakthrough" in...

Cautious optimism after the shock
ECUADOR · Report · 21 Feb 2025

The results of the first round of the presidential election came as a shock to many Ecuadorians—especially Noboa, his party, and supporters who, based on the polls, expected a win in this round. Not only was the close vote atypical of a first round (only 22,000 votes separated Noboa from Gonzalez...

Kazakhstan macro: Various factors are pushing the tenge off equilibrium again
KAZAKHSTAN · Report · 21 Feb 2025 · 1 response

In our previous reports, we have repeatedly mentioned that an excessively strong tenge was one of the main reasons for the poor flow of the exchange rate-related taxes on various levels of the country’s budgetary system, including the National Fund. As the tenge weakened in December and remained ...

GULF WEEKLY: Saudi hosts US-Russia talks and Trump at FII Miami, Qatar issues $3bn bonds and will graduate from the EMBI, HSBC exits Bahrain
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 21 Feb 2025

A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * The first 2.5km section of The Line is planned to have 60 times the area of the Burj Khalifa and 200k residents. * New forecasts for the Saudi deficit this year include -2.7% of GDP (SNB) and -3.8% (Fitch). * Saudi Arabia...

The testimony of Bolsonaro’s former aid Mauro Cid has caused split reactions, next week the focus will be on the reconciliation meeting between the branches of government, and the House is expected to vote on two export bills
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 21 Feb 2025

The release of videos featuring the testimony of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, has sparked different reactions among government supporters and Bolsonaro’s allies. The pressure for Bolsonaro to signal whom he will support has intensified, but he continues to res...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Monetary policy in a wait-and-see mode in 2025
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 21 Feb 2025

Inflation in the CCA space peaked in mid-2022 and has been on a steady downward trajectory through 1Q24, when it bottomed out. Some acceleration of price growth has gradually become ever more evident across the board since later in 2024, and I anticipate that momentum to entrench itself over the ...

Large 2024 deficit (7.35% of GDP) and commitment of MEF to reduce it to less than the 4.0% ceiling of the Fiscal Law
PANAMA · In Brief · 20 Feb 2025

Today, Minister Chapman presented the fiscal situation for the end of 2024 and perspectives for 2025. The deficit of the NFPS of 7.35% in 2024, above our estimate of 6.2% and above the 2.0% that the Fiscal Law established in the 2020 revision by Minister Alexander. The explanation is twofold: und...

The Senate installed its permanent committees, the government breathed a sigh of relief with the indictment of Bolsonaro, and Lula said there is no timeline for his cabinet reshuffle
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 20 Feb 2025

The Federal Senate installed its permanent committees on Wednesday (February 19), electing their presidents. The government secured a major victory by placing allies in the presidencies of the CCJ and CAE. The government breathed a sigh of relief with the charges filed by the Prosecutor General’s...

No breakthrough in the "Year of Breakthroughs". Is there disinflation?
POLAND · In Brief · 19 Feb 2025 · 1 response

Governments ambitious (?) investment plans This text borrows from an article that Jan Hagemejer published with CASE's Andrzej Robaszewski on Monday in a Polish leading newspaper – Rzeczpospolita. Introduction On February 10, 2025, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk unveiled an economic plan titled...

Inflation jumped in January
HUNGARY · Report · 19 Feb 2025

CPI-inflation started the year with a big upward adjustment in January, on a cyclical pickup of agricultural prices, the decent strength of consumer demand and the impact of the weak forint on import prices. The size of this change genuinely surprised the MNB and analysts, even though its directi...

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