GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

This is the final week of the municipal election campaign before the first round, which will take place next Sunday. President Lula will attend the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum as the president of Mexico. In the Senate, the Economic Affairs Committee continues its public hearings on Tax Refo...

Fiscal Easing Complicates the Central Bank’s Work

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 30 Sep 2024

The economy is growing faster than its potential, as confirmed by labor market data. In August, the unemployment rate, adjusted for seasonal effects, reached the lowest level in the series. However, the preliminary inflation data for September showed favorable signs, which we believe are temporar...

Hopes deferred

CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 30 Sep 2024

El Salvador’s short-term economic outlook looks less hopeful we projected in our April 2024 report, after analyzing H1 trends. Deviation from key assumptions we made in the April forecasting exercise has turned perspectives less favorable. The eventual better performance that we expected either c...

Markets shrug at the Lebanon conflict, but are underestimating the risks

GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 30 Sep 2024

Markets have shrugged off the risks from the conflict in Lebanon, including the killing of Hezbollah's leader and a pending ground invasion. Hezbollah may not be as weakened as thought and, although Iran has shown restraint until now, this may be a step too far. Lots of human suffering is ahead. ...

More opposition to diversion of P89.9 billion to PhilHealth

PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 30 Sep 2024

A couple of days ago, former high-ranking officials including former cabinet secretaries joined the broadening section of Philippine society by issuing a statement opposing the diversion of P89.9 billion of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) funds to the National Treasury to...

Politics: New Morena leadership, with Sheinbaum increasingly fenced in by AMLO and a highly disparate party

MEXICO · Report · 30 Sep 2024

A week ago, 3,000 delegates to a Morena party congress were called upon to raise their hands to endorse a new national executive committee, whose composition the national leadership only read out immediately before the seemingly unanimous vote. The new leadership is heavily stacked with AMLO loya...

This is the last week for municipal campaigns, the Senate will hold Galípolo’s confirmation hearings on October 8, and the priority in the House is the second Tax Reform regulation bill

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 30 Sep 2024

This is the last week of the municipal election campaign period before the first round, which will take place next Sunday. The campaign period ends on Thursday (October 3). On October 8, according to Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), the Senate floor will analyze Gabriel Galípolo's appoi...

Economics: The Mexican economy continues to lose steam; Banxico lowers the reference rate by 25 bp

MEXICO · Report · 30 Sep 2024

Indicators published over the course of September have shown the Mexican economy accentuating its slowdown. Industrial sector growth trickled to a mere +0.6% in July, as did manufacturing, while that of aggregate supply and demand sputtered to just shy of a single percentage point in the second q...

South Caucasus in flux

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · Report · 30 Sep 2024

Across the Caucasus, the center of gravity has been reshaped by events in the last few decades. Soviet-era political and economic ties have been substituted by multipolar, international ones. But, suddenly, in recent months, countries in the region are being drawn quickly in different directions ...

Bond yields push higher on downgrade and escalation

ISRAEL · Report · 30 Sep 2024

1. Bonds sold off modestly yesterday on Moody’s two-notch downgrade and the escalation in the North. 2. Recent economic indicators point to growth acceleration in Q3, at least until the escalation in September. 3. With inflation expected to remain elevated for most of 2025, monetary easing ...

Moody's two notch downgrade and escalation weigh on bond yields

ISRAEL · In Brief · 29 Sep 2024

Geopolitics: Israel has escalated intensely its attacks on Hezbollah in a series of attacks, first the pager explosions, then massive air attacks and recently the Nasrallah assassination and bombing of missile storage facilities in Beirut. The retaliation from Hezbollah has so far been minor, pos...

Back to foreign policy, and more…

TURKEY · Report · 29 Sep 2024 · 2 responses

New York City mayor Eric Adams spared the politics author the boring task of covering Ekrem Imamoglu’s pending disbarment from political office and the potential for early elections. Instead, this week’s political essays are largely dedicated to foreign affairs. The indictment of NYC mayor Ada...

GULF WEEKLY: Aramco and ADQ issue debt, Gulf leaders attend UN, Oman has a strong Q2 GDP

GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 27 Sep 2024 · 1 response

A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines: * Oil dipped as the market offset returning Libyan and Saudi supply against China’s stimulus plans. * OPEC’s long-term demand forecasts were hiked and it sees 18m b/d demand growth by 2050. * Aramco issued $3bn in sukuk, li...

Kazakhstan macro: budgetary policy to gradually improve

KAZAKHSTAN · Report · 27 Sep 2024

The August budgetary statistics brought no surprises as trends that had emerged previously remain the same. At the same time, recent statistics and some official publications hinted at some changes in budgetary policy and the implications for exchange rate dynamics. Even though the tenge weakened...

Sep CCA Highlights: Armenia keeps easing, Azerbaijan reveals key assumptions of 2025 budget, Georgia grows by 9.0% over 1H, Uzbekistan leaves policy rates unchanged

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 27 Sep 2024

We briefly comment on the key macro and political events in the CCA in Sep: Armenia: Central Bank cuts policy rate by 25bpts to 7.50% Armenia: CPI remains contained at 1.3% YoY in Aug Armenia: Central Bank expects economy to grow by 5.8-6.5% in 2024 Armenia: Monthly economic indicator slow...