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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Mulino's cabinet is set, but the composition of the legislative Assembly is in doubt. Fiscal weakness and slow growth are challenges for the next administration.
PANAMA · Report · 31 May 2024 · 2 responses

With less than six weeks to go until the new National Assembly is installed (and 25 days after the general elections on May 5), we still do not know the Assembly's definitive political composition. This uncertainty is mostly due to the strategy by a group of losing candidates and parties from the...

Fiscal rules, healthcare debacles and constitutional assemblies
COLOMBIA · Report · 31 May 2024 · 1 response

There has been so much news in Colombia, so much of it bad, that pinning down the most striking or damaging pieces poses a challenge. To start at the top: the most frequent theme of President Gustavo Petro’s many speeches seems to be his idea for convoking a constitutional assembly. That – which ...

Whopping sequential growth in Q1
TURKEY · Report · 31 May 2024

The Turkish economy grew by 5.7%, y/y, and 2.4%, q/q, in the first quarter of the year (Graph 1). The latter is much higher than (at least this author) expected and is rather broad-based, too, propelled by all demand engines with private consumption, government consumption, investment and exports...

GULF WEEKLY: Saudi issues sukuk and announces Aramco secondary sale, UAE signs CEPA with Korea, Alat invests $2bn in Lenovo
GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 31 May 2024

A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * Candidates for the Iranian presidency include hardliner Saeed Jalili and former speaker Ali Larijani. * Saudi Arabia issued $5bn in dollar sukuk and extended the maturity profile for $17bn in riyal sukuk. * Aramco announc...

Changes to the ministerial team should be made after the municipal elections, the Ministry of Finance may announce fiscal measures to compensate for payroll tax relief, and the Tax Reform GT will hold a series of public hearings
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 31 May 2024

After the defeats the government suffered in Congress, pressure has increased for changes to be made in the ministerial team and political negotiation. However, this should only take place toward the end of the year, after the municipal elections. Today, the Ministry of Finance may announce measu...

Webinar Replay and Slide Presentation - Mexico Elections: At a Crossroad
MEXICO · Report · 31 May 2024

Visit our calendar page to watch the replay of our webinar on Mexico’s elections and their potential impact on the country’s macro and politics. What are the main drivers of the electoral outlook in 2024? Will the new government preserve adequate macroeconomic fundamentals? Will Morena and its al...

May CCA Highlights: Armenia grows by 9.2% in 1Q24, Azerbaijan and Georgia stick with rate cuts, Uzbekistan's CPI jumps on higher utility tariffs, Tajikistan grows by 8.3% in 1Q
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 31 May 2024

We comment briefly on the key macro events in the CCA region in May: Armenia: GDP expands by 9.2% YoY in 1Q Armenia: Monthly economic indicator slows to 10.4% YoY in Apr Armenia: Deflation lingers on in Apr Armenia: Budget posts small deficit in 1Q24 Armenia: Foreign reserves decrease to U...

Mixed feelings towards Belarus in the EU
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 31 May 2024

On May 29 the Hungarian Foreign Minister visited Belarus. This is the first visit by the foreign minister of an EU country for several years. The Hungarian Government is the most sympathetic to Russia and Belarus of all the EU governments. Minsk and Budapest signed an agreement on cooperation on ...

April budget details confirm fiscal adjustment is taking place
HUNGARY · In Brief · 31 May 2024

The detailed figures of the central government's cash budget for April confirm our previous evaluation that fiscal adjustment, very much required given the high fiscal deficit ratio, is actually taking place. As reported earlier, the central government's (the government sector less local governme...

The South African Reserve Bank keeps interest rates steady following the nation’s general elections
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 30 May 2024

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has once again announced that it is keeping the benchmark interest rate unchanged, the sixth consecutive time it has done so. This was following this week’s conclusion of its Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) third meeting of the year, which also came a day a...

Bi-Weekly Economic News Summary
KAZAKHSTAN · In Brief · 30 May 2024

May 16 President: Kazakhstan and China have the potential to increase annual trade turnover between the two countries by a factor of 2.5 compared to 2023, i.e., up to $100 bln. Oil transit: Oil pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Jan-Apr 2024 amounted to 9.6 mln tons, from which 19...

A deceptive first quarter
CHILE · Report · 30 May 2024

At first glance, Q1 activity data appears positive compared to the recent past. However, this improvement results from a smaller-than-usual drop in activity during the holiday months, rather than from an increase in GDP. A significant part is explained by household consumption. Upon closer inspec...

Industry continues to expand in 4M24
RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 30 May 2024

Rosstat reported that in 4M24 and April alone, industrial output grew y-o-y by 5.2% and 3.9%. Some y-o-y deceleration in April was, to some extent, an effect of an additional calendar day in February (leap-year effect). Going forward the magnitude of this effect will ease, and it looks as though ...

A new phase in the exchange rate regime
INDIA · Report · 30 May 2024

The INR exchange rate regime shifted into reduced flexibility in 2014. It is now possible to look back at the period from October 2022, and we see a new phase, with a tightly managed exchange rate and an almost fixed USD/INR exchange rate. It is not fully clear how this was implemented. The reduc...

Georgian Parliament overrides presidential veto of the foreign agent bill
RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 29 May 2024

On May 28 as we predicted the vote went 84-4 in favor of the bill. This supermajority means that the bill becomes law. There were more than 4 deputies against the bill but most of them abstained. The president will be requested again to sign the bill. If she refuses (as is probable) then the spea...

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