GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

On January 28 the president became leader of the ruling party: Nur Otan. Nazarbayev has also been removed as the chair of the people's assembly. He retains the title "Leader of the Nation". However, that appears to be meaningless. Some members of Nur Otan are unhappy at the way January's unrest w...

India- Central Asia online summit

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 31 Jan 2022

On January 27 the summit took place and involved the Indian Prime Minister and the presidents of all five countries in the region. India would like to spread its influence in the region. This is partly to counter Chinese presence in Central Asia. China already has a military base in Tajikistan. P...

Costa Rica: Elections critical for the IMF deal and macroeconomic performance

CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 31 Jan 2022

Costa Rica´s presidential election is around the corner. With a record number of candidates, growing voter dissatisfaction and a large percentage of undecided voters, the winner is still uncertain. Four candidates are struggling to win a spot for the second round in April. Their economic views re...

Politics: Institutional weakening – a severe threat to Mexico’s development

MEXICO · Report · 31 Jan 2022

Policies to promote economic modernity since the 1980s and political democratization from the beginning of the century until 2018 created a good, but fragile and insufficient institutional framework in Mexico. Such policies included expanded freedoms for private sector participation in previously...

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...