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President Rodrigo Duterte has found himself caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, covid-19 cases are rising, with data from the DOH showing the 7-day average positivity rate for daily tests close to 12% compared with a little over 6% a month ago and with experts estimating the ...

US likely to impose more sanctions on Nord Stream 2

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 22 Jul 2020

On July 20 the House of Representatives passed a bill to put more sanctions on the companies involved in building a 1230 km gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The pipeline is being completed under Danish territorial waters. The sanctions would be an amendment pursuant to the National Defense Au...

The government´s Tax Reform proposal reaches Congress

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 21 Jul 2020

The Minister of the Economy, Paulo Guedes, submitted the government’s Tax Reform proposal to the National Congress. The bill was sent to the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (DEM-AP). The first stage of analysis will deal only with the unification of the PIS and Cofins taxes. Thus, more c...

The 10% solution: fiddling with Chile's pensions

CHILE · Report · 21 Jul 2020 · 2 responses

The House of Deputies last week passed a bill that would allow some Chileans to withdraw 10% of their AFP savings. The approval of the measure, which is intended to provide further relief to those suffering from the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis, was met with indecorous scenes of c...

Today's Monetary Council action went exactly as expected

HUNGARY · In Brief · 21 Jul 2020

At its regular monthly rate-setting meeting, the Council acted exactly matching the preliminary indications from vice governor Virág earlier this month. It reduced the base rate by another 0.15%-point to 0.6%, while strongly suggesting that it would not continue to lower the rate further. Specifi...

The Government declared the State of Emergency, again

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · In Brief · 21 Jul 2020

The deterioration of the sanitary situation due to COVID-19 in July forced the Government to request Congress authorization to declare, once again, a State of Emergency. Last Sunday, the Congress passed the authorization and on Monday the President signed the decree. The declaration will be in fo...

China virus check – week ending July 20

CHINA ADVISORY · Report · 21 Jul 2020

Our latest data for economic activity in China shows a continued split between sectors relating to heavy industry and infrastructure and the retail portion of the economy. Power generation and steel production are at high levels while car sales dipped sharply in July, and other indicators of loca...

Protests in Russia over dismissed governor

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 21 Jul 2020

The Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk has seen 11 days of protests against the dismissal of Governor of Sergei Furgal. Furgal is in jail awaiting trial for 2 murders allegedly committed in 2004. Up to 50 000 people in the city of 600 000 people have protested. The police have not attempted to preven...

US sanctions Russian governor

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 21 Jul 2020

On July 20 the US announced sanctions against Ramazan Kadyrov and his family. Kadyrov is the President of Chechnya which is part of Russia. The reason for the sanctions is that the US suspects him of extrajudicial killings and torture.

The new head of the NBU talks about further prime rate decline

UKRAINE · In Brief · 21 Jul 2020

On July 20th President Zelenskiy introduced the new head of the NBU, Kyryl Shevchenko. As his first message, Mr. Shevchenko mentioned (a) intensified credit for economic activity revival, (b) reduction of the NPL portfolio, (c) macro-financial stability, and (d) intensified cooperation with inter...

Improvement in the government’s popularity to help the reform agenda

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 20 Jul 2020

The new XP/Ipespe poll, published today and carried out from July 13-15, shows an improvement in the popularity of President Jair Bolsonaro. Although the government’s negative (bad/very bad) rating is 45%, there is a clear downward trend. In the last two months, the negative index has fallen by 5...

Tax Reform: Will it happen now? and other weekly topics

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 20 Jul 2020

The main topic of the week is Tax Reform, the first phase of which will be delivered to the Congress by the government on Tuesday. The proposal unifies the PIS and Cofins taxes. The Lower House will function only on Monday and Tuesday, and may vote on the constitutional amendment that extends th...

Politics: An insufficient new National Security Plan

MEXICO · Report · 20 Jul 2020

President López Obrador has long argued that his security proposals constitute a “new paradigm” that break with the actions of the two presidential administrations that preceded him and incorporate general aspects of his political project, an approach embedded in both the government’s national de...

The Good Performance of Exports

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 20 Jul 2020

Even with a weaker real exchange rate than the average during the period since the Real Plan (1994 to date), there was no way to expect Brazilian exports to expand in 2020 in a period of deep global recession. However, the slow pace of the recent decline has been surprising. The reason is the hig...

Can Hungary resist the global trend of Covid-19?

HUNGARY · Forecast · 20 Jul 2020

The outlook for the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly deteriorated over the last two months. Contrary to earlier expectations that the epidemic would recede during the summer though it might return when the weather gets colder in the Northern Hemisphere, the current prospect is continuous further spr...