GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

As a result of the price increase announced by Petrobras, the Senate approved both fuel bills. PLP 11 was also approved in the House yesterday, and President Bolsonaro has 15 working days to sanction it. PL 1472 still does not have an agreement in the House, and the rapporteur of the bill says it...

Russia and Ukraine trade WMD accusations

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 11 Mar 2022

Moscow alleges that Ukraine is developing chemical, biological weapons with US assistance. Ukraine and the United States say this is an outright lie, and the US says that Russia is considering using tactical nuclear weapons or poison gas in Ukraine and will blame this on Ukraine. The US alleges t...

South Africa registers a record current account surplus in 2021

SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 11 Mar 2022

The current account data released yesterday by the South African Reserve Bank indicates that South Africa’s current account recorded a surplus of R120 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021. This represented another decline in the record surpluses since H2 2020; from R273 billion, R300 billion and...

Petro as an instrument of revenge

COLOMBIA · Report · 10 Mar 2022 · 1 response

Gustavo Petro's proposals seem inspired less by hope than by a spirit of revenge. His most notorious proposals are: 1) end oil exploration and export; 2) use primary money creation at zero cost to finance expenditure; 3) grab pension savings to pay for education and the elderly; 4) impose tariffs...

Counter sanctions by Russia as peace talks fail

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 10 Mar 2022

On March 10 talks in Turkey between Ukraine and Russia ended in no agreement. Russia repeated its demand that Ukraine rule out ever joining NATO and the EU.On March 10 Russia announced counter sanctions. Russia will not sell timber, vehicles, electrical goods, or telecommunications equipment. For...

China’s GDP growth target for 2022 is 5.5 percent

CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 10 Mar 2022

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Beijing announced a 5.5 percent GDP growth target for 2022. This was what I had expected, but well above what most economists believe the Chinese economy can manage. * But I think they are wrong. In fact, the Chinese economy can manage m...

Sterilisation rate raised by another 50bps today

HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 Mar 2022

At today's usual weekly tender, the 1-week deposit rate was raised to 5.85%, using the authorisation provided by Tuesday's Monetary Council decision to raise the upper end of the interest rate corridor by 100 bps, to 6.4%. As well-known to the reader, the corridor ceiling is actually the O/N and ...

The vote on the fuel bills was postponed to today, the STF voted against the PDT’s case on the Clean Record Law, and Rodrigo Pacheco stated he will not be running for President of the Republic

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 10 Mar 2022

The vote on the fuel bills was postponed to today. The Amazon caucus asked for changes to be made to the decree that reduced the IPI to avoid damaging the Manaus Free Trade Zone, and the inclusion of a gasoline voucher for app drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers in PLP 11 was also discussed. The ...

External fundamentals remain exceptionally strong for the shekel

ISRAEL · In Brief · 10 Mar 2022

The current account surplus in Q421 increased to 6.6bn USD up from 4.9bn in Q321. In all of 2021, the surplus reached 22.5bn (similar to 2020) or 4.7% of GDP. In Q421 the service account surplus continued to expand on strong hi-tech exports by 1.2bn while the trade deficit remained stable. Net FD...

The fallout from a faraway war

PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 10 Mar 2022

Below updates are intended to give readers a better sense of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting the local economy. Gas stations carried out this week their heftiest price increase so far this year, bringing gasoline prices about 20% above December 2021 levels. The upward adjustments wi...

Russia’s inflation accelerates in February and early March, higher numbers yet to come

RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 09 Mar 2022

Rosstat reported that the m-o-m inflation in February reached 1.17%, which brought the y-o-y and YTD inflation to 9.15% and 2.17%. In seven days ending March 4, inflation w-o-w was reported at 2.22%, and the MTD inflation reached 1.26% as Rosstat split the w-o-w inflation between the two months. ...

February inflation and budget deficit both look bad... but could have been much worse indeed

HUNGARY · In Brief · 09 Mar 2022

CPI-inflation rose further to 8.3% yoy in February from 7.9% yoy in the previous month. Prices rose by 1.1% in February alone. High inflation is pretty much broad-based now, with 69% of the consumer basket with at least 5% yoy increases. Core inflation was also up, to 8.1% yoy from January's 7.4%...

Russia bans large scale currency transactions

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 09 Mar 2022

On March 8 Russia banned foreign currency sales. This is an attempt to hold up the value of the currency. This law will last until September 9 2022 and then be reviewed. Those with any foreign currency accounts can withdraw USD 10 000 and only in USD not other currencies.The official rate is 120 ...

Political poll summary for the 2022 elections

COLOMBIA · Report · 09 Mar 2022

In this slide presentation, we report on the most recent polling data in anticipation of the upcoming March 13 and May 29 elections in Colombia. This data includes vote intentions for political coalitions in the March 13 elections, vote intentions for presidential candidates in the May 29 electio...

KUWAIT: Research tour finds a gloomy atmosphere and reduced momentum for debt issuance

GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 09 Mar 2022

A research trip in Kuwait this week revealed a gloomy atmosphere given longstanding bureaucratic and corruption issues and a lack of vision and leadership. Although the oil surge has brought a fiscal reprieve and means that the need for debt issuance is now less urgent, the underlying problems co...