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Important announcement from the Economy Minister on policy reforms prepared for 2015
HUNGARY · In Brief · 23 Sep 2014

Fact: Earlier today, Economy Minister Varga spoke at a conference in Budapest. He made an important announcement on upcoming fiscal and other policy reports, which he expected to be part of the 2015 budget. This statement made the forint strengthen moderately in early trade, to EURHUF 310-311, bu...

Political Insights: Week of September 22
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 22 Sep 2014

There are two weeks left until the first round of the elections (10/5).The candidates for president, governor and senator will intensify activities in this final leg of the campaign.In the coming days, six new presidential voting intention polls will be released. Presidential Election: Main Indic...

Inflation and the Exchange Rate Movements: What Are the Trends?
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 22 Sep 2014

The IPCA-15 in September came as a surprise at 0.39%, a slightly higher rate than the consensus projections and greater than the IPCA for August, which was 0.25%. This brought the IPCA over the past 12 months to 6.62%, versus 6.5% in July, with tradables accumulating an increase of 6.9% in 12 mon...

Weekly Tracker: September 21-27
TURKEY · Report · 21 Sep 2014

Executive Summary The nation sighed a collective breath of relief, as ISIS released the 49 hostages it had captured in the raid on the consular building of Mosul in June.Yet, the ending of the hostage crisis would give berth to Western allies to increase pressure on Ankara to play a bigger role i...

Pontius Pilatus’ Court of Appeals
ARGENTINA · In Brief · 20 Sep 2014

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit refrained from judging on the appeal presented by Citigroup. The appeal aimed to determine whether judge Griesa’s rulings have the scope to prohibit its local branch (an independent subsidiary, established under Argentine law) to fulfill its obligati...

FDI Meets Structural Change
CHINA · Report · 19 Sep 2014

Executive Summary Fixed asset investment increased 13.8% y/y in real terms in August, its lowest growth rate so far this year. Industrial output rose 6.9% y/y, down 2.1 pps from July, likewise a significant fall, to below even the weakest growth seen during the Asian Financial Crisis. If gover...

Brazil Presidential Election
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 19 Sep 2014

Datafolha: Marina’s rejection increases and she loses votes in the Southeast The Datafolha poll released today presents four important pieces of information: 1) Dilma Rousseff has expanded her lead over Marina in the 1st round; 2) Although the PT and PSB candidates are still tied in the 2nd round...

A Solid Budget Proposal
MEXICO · Report · 19 Sep 2014

Executive Summary The Ministry of Finance handed Congress on Friday, September 5 its budget proposals for 2015, which include the General Economic Policy Criteria for the year, a text that contains the economic and financial assumptions on which all budget proposals are predicated, as well as the...

New Mechanics of Overcoming Distrust
MEXICO · Report · 19 Sep 2014

Executive Summary Throughout the final 70 years the 20th century, the PRI was the perennially incumbent party, one that enjoyed the full support of every outgoing administration and free rein in deploying public funds to assure its perpetual hold on power. As smaller parties slowly were allowed t...

Repo Rate on Hold despite Mounting CPI
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 19 Sep 2014

As she tabled her last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) statement of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), Governor Gill Marcus left the repo rate unchanged at 5.75% per year. However, she cautioned of increasing upside risks to inflation on the back of a weak exchange rate. The Bank highlighted ...

An Express Lane to “Quick Wins”
INDONESIA · Report · 17 Sep 2014

Executive Summary After taking the oath of office on October 20th, President-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will have to quickly announce his dream team – his cabinet. He’ll also have to introduce the most appealing initiatives, able to win the hearts of not only his supporters, but also of the na...

Worrisome Signals in 2Q GDP Performance
COLOMBIA · Report · 17 Sep 2014

Economic activity expanded by 4.3% in Q2, slowing relative to Q1, when it grew by an outstanding (given the state of the world economy) 6.5%. There were few surprises in this result. Construction remains the most dynamic sector, while housing construction (excluding “social purpose” public housin...

Brazil Presidential Election
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 16 Sep 2014

Vox Populi Confirms Previous Results The Vox Populi poll released yesterday, September 15, presents a scenario in which Dilma Rousseff (PT) and Marina Silva (PSB) are tied, the same scenario registered in last week’s polls.The president leads in the first round. The PSB candidate leads in the sec...

It's Been a Cold, Cold Winter
CHILE · Report · 16 Sep 2014

Executive Summary Pessimism in Chile is rising, with economists and business leaders increasingly blaming the government for the economic slowdown. Most analysts have lowered their growth estimates, as have the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance. We, however, are far from agreeing w...

Donbas special status law – will it end the war?
UKRAINE · In Brief · 16 Sep 2014

Today the parliament voted in law on special status of Donbas. With this law Ukraine approves Transnistria-style gray zone on its territory. From this law we do not have clear vision how relations will be organized but very likely Ukraine will pay some money from the budget for maintenance of the...