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The race for the center and other weekly topics
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 31 Jan 2022

The Judiciary and Congress return to work this week. In Congress, no significant votes are expected for this week. In terms of the economy, the first Copom meeting to decide the basic interest rate should be highlighted. Anatel judges the sale of Oi on Monday, January 31. Two new polls on the pre...

Monetary Policy Committee minutes: the NBU planned to hike policy rate by 2ppt but calmed down eventually
UKRAINE · In Brief · 31 Jan 2022

The minutes of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting revealed a very interesting point. A majority of MPC members supported the idea to hike the policy rate by 2 ppts up to 11% already in January. One member even claimed that a 12% policy rate is a proper level for current uncertainty. The "Rus...

Synthesis of the Brazilian Economy
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 31 Jan 2022

Although still in the phase of accelerated growth in the country at large, there are signs that the outbreak of the Omicron variant is stabilizing in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. As has been detected in other countries, the new variant is highly transmissible but less lethal in peo...

Economics: January data show growing challenges for the Mexican economy in 2022
MEXICO · Report · 31 Jan 2022

The economic news published in January provides further evidence that the most immediate hurdles facing the Mexican economy this year include the upsurge in inflation and the extent to which the recovery has been losing steam. Those challenges emerge at a time when public finance continues to wea...

Congress and the Judiciary resume activity, two new polls on the presidential election will be published, and Anatel holds an extraordinary meeting
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 31 Jan 2022

The Judiciary returns on Tuesday, and the Legislature returns on Wednesday. There are no relevant bills on the agenda in either the House or the Senate, but there are a number of other matters on the congressional agenda. The issue involving President Jair Bolsonaro's failure to testify at the Fe...

Envisioning a green industrial park
INDONESIA · Report · 31 Jan 2022

On several occasions, especially during the G20 meeting in Rome, as well as the recent COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, Indonesian President Joko Widodo stated that the Indonesian government envisions a green industrial park to be located in Northern Kalimantan Province. In fact, to show that the state...

Robust labor data (despite Omicron) is rate hike supportive
ISRAEL · Report · 31 Jan 2022

1. The labor market improved in the first half of January despite the deceleration impact of Omicron. 2. The Omicron wave appears to be peaking, and restrictions on schools and other activities are gradually being lifted. 3. We have updated our inflation forecast in February to 0.4%...

Unemployment declines (and employment improves) despite Omicron
ISRAEL · In Brief · 31 Jan 2022

Robust labor data despite Omicron. In the 1st half of January unemployment declined to 3.5% from 3.9% in the second half of December. Broad unemployment (including Covid furloughs which have increased recently) remained stable at 5.8%. More impressive is the increase in the number of employed by ...

Russian suffered 950,000 excess deaths since pandemic began
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 31 Jan 2022 · 2 responses

On January 28 data was published by the Russian Statistics Agency showing that Russia has experienced the sharpest natural population decline since the early 1990s. The excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 are on top of the deaths one would ordinarily expect.There were one million more deaths than birt...

Private consumption contracts (most likely temporarily) due to Omicron
ISRAEL · In Brief · 30 Jan 2022

Private consumption declines on Covid concernsIn Q421, Credit card purchases increased by 1.5% saar, slowing from 8.6% in Q321. A closer look points to a 2.3% m/m contraction in December with service purchases down 5.5%, clearly due to Omicron concerns.Initial data for January through 17.1 point ...

A boring week by Turkish standards
TURKEY · Report · 30 Jan 2022

Our cupboard is running empty on domestic politics, as we have covered pretty much everything of immediate import in our comments since the beginning of the year. As regards the future, we shall talk about it in our upcoming monthly report. President Erdogan launched a series of reshufflings i...

​First impressions on the announced EFF structure
ARGENTINA · In Brief · 28 Jan 2022

The government confirmed in two separate presentations that Argentina had reached an agreement with the IMF. First, in a recorded speech, President Alberto Fernández gave a primarily political message, which seemed directed at reassuring his Kirchnerist allies. In a follow-up press conference, he...

Russia: a brief market watch
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 28 Jan 2022 · 1 response

As was expected, the Russian financial markets were very volatile in January as the noise about the “scheduled” Russia's invasion of Ukraine became louder and more annoying in recent weeks. One can expect volatility to remain elevated also in February regardless of whether the go-ahead takes plac...

GULF WEEKLY: Fitch downgrades Kuwait, Adnoc bond pending, Houthis strike UAE again
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 28 Jan 2022

​A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * Oil keeps climbing, but OPEC+ is not expected to accelerate its tapering plan next week. * Iran nuclear talks are looking more hopeful, including mediation by Qatar on a prisoner exchange. * The Saudi sovereign borrowing...

​Consumer credit growth slows in December, as household deposit growth strengthens
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 28 Jan 2022

CBR reported that household deposits increased in December by 5.5% m-o-m (5.8% if escrow accounts added) as the key rate was hiked amid accelerated inflation. In 2021 as a whole, household deposits grew by 13.3% as a result.At the same time, banks’ credit to households (mortgages and consumer cre...