GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

Arrests after a higher court conviction will be a point of discussion in the Lower House and Senate. Wednesday is the deadline for the presentation of amendments to MP #905/19, which deals with labor contracts. The Senate will vote on the Parallel Pension Proposal. On Thursday, the First National...

Politics: Dismantling checks and balances

MEXICO · Report · 18 Nov 2019

President López Obrador continues to make significant progress in concentrating power in the presidency to the detriment of all other political institutions. By steadily re-engineering and re-staffing the entire institutional infrastructure, the administration is eliminating any potential restrai...

Head of the President Office complains about the IMF negotiations

UKRAINE · In Brief · 18 Nov 2019

Local web-site The Бабель wrote about an ‘off the record’ meeting of Andriy Bohdan, the Chief of Staff of the President Office with foreign and local journalists on November 15. Journalists of The Бабель did not participate at the meeting but had a talk with those who were invited. Allegedly at t...

The old story repeats itself again

HUNGARY · Report · 18 Nov 2019

By now, readers may have become somewhat bored by reading all the repeated claims by forecasters that the economy is now genuinely set to lose its growth momentum, after a period of heavy resistance to the weak European business cycle. Sharing the consensus view, we still believe that sooner or l...

Yandex ownership is changing

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 18 Nov 2019

United Russia Deputy Anton Gorelkin put forward a bill to restrict foreign ownership of internet companies. A Public Interest Foundation (PIF) will be set up with the authority to forbid the sale of 10% of Yandex's voting shares or economic interests to any party. There will be a board of 11 cont...

Indigenous groups stronger, Moreno weaker

ECUADOR · Forecast · 18 Nov 2019 · 1 response

Despite a large national consensus regarding the complicity of the indigenous groups in the violent riots of last October, there is no doubt that they emerged stronger from the protests while Moreno and the government are now weaker than before. Democracy, if we believe is there one in Ecuador, e...

Soft core inflation and weak underlying growth support a rate cut

ISRAEL · Report · 18 Nov 2019

Although headline GDP growth was robust, GDP growth excluding inventories actually contracted in Q319. The quarter witnessed a contraction of exports, investment in capital goods, and non-durable consumption per capita. We think that both the latest CPI and GDP data support a rate cut of 0.15% on...

Monitoring the pace of recovery

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 18 Nov 2019

There are no doubts that the economy has been rebounding, influenced by rising household consumption and growth of the service sector. The most recent monthly indicators point to continued growth in the third quarter, mainly led by household consumption, in turn driven by a combination of persist...

Gulf weekly: Kuwait’s government resigns and Aramco downsizes IPO

GULF COUNTRIES · Report · 18 Nov 2019

The Gulf Weekly is intended as a skimmable summary of key developments, overlaid with our analysis and links to further information. Key headlines include: * Aramco has scaled back its IPO to 1.5% at a $1.6-1.7trn on weak foreign demand. * Kuwait’s government resigned, amidst signs of a rift be...

Belarus argues with Russia over warplanes

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS · In Brief · 18 Nov 2019

On November 15 President Lukashenko of Belarus complained that Russia was charging an extortionate amount for military aircraft. He threatened to end a common border that the two had established. Su-30 SM fighters are being purchased by Belarus. According to Belarus they were offered the planes f...

No Christmas cheer on the horizon

TURKEY · Report · 17 Nov 2019

After a very brief period of confusion, senior US Senators began to repeat sanctions threats if S-400 anti-missile systems are activated. Ankara’s official position is that they will be made operational, but the dropping of any reference to a deadline can be viewed as a slim hope that the process...

Normandy format meeting agreed on Dec 9

UKRAINE · In Brief · 16 Nov 2019

Yesterday, on November 15, President Office informed that meeting under Normandy format (France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine) will do happen on December 9. Over the last few months President Zelenskiy has been striving to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss potential ways of de-escal...

Chile’s constitutional deal

CHILE · In Brief · 16 Nov 2019 · 1 response

After nearly a month of almost daily protest intermixed with sporadic violence (mostly arson and looting), practically the entire political spectrum has come together to agree on a process for designing and approving a new constitution. The agreement, signed by representatives of almost every pol...

Is the end nigh for South African Airways?

SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 15 Nov 2019

The embattled state-owned entity (SOE) South African Airways (SAA) is on the brink of collapse. It is understood that SAA desperately needs around R2 billion in order to fund its operations until the end of the current financial year, but Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has made it clear on several...

October's CPI comes in at the low end of consensus

ISRAEL · Report · 15 Nov 2019

October's CPI reached 0.4% m/m and 0.4% y/y (up slightly from 0.3% y/y last month), coming in at the low end of consensus, which was in the 0.4%-0.5% range. We also had expected 0.5% but two items surprised on the downside. Housing (rental prices), which makes up nearly 25% of the CPI, moderated ...