GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

We currently expect a rate hike of 0.25% today (Monday) Inflation has remained sticky, surprising on the upside, and broad-based. Economic activity appears resilient (for now) and the labor market fairly tight. The BoI annual report noted that inflation being impacted by demand factors, and less ...

Policy reform notes

PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 02 Apr 2023

We turn our attention away from the banking turmoil in the west and look at some recent domestic policy developments. We find some of these good in terms of helping to improve the local investment climate, some less clear in terms of their economy-wide net benefit, and others, more distracting th...

Russia calls up 147,000 conscripts

CIS POLITICS · In Brief · 01 Apr 2023

On March 30 Putin signed the decree conscripting the 18-27 year olds for one year. Last year only 125,000 were called up at this time. The increase is said to be because the Defense Ministry has widened the parameters of those eligible. Men who would have been excluded for reasons of mental or ph...

Belarus calls for a truce in Ukraine

CIS POLITICS · In Brief · 01 Apr 2023

On March 31 the President Lukasheno called on the warring parties to call a truce without any preconditions. He warned of the risk of escalation. Lukashenko said that the issues ought to be agreed through talks. He said that Western arms shipments were raising the chance of a nuclear war. As Bela...

Russia: a brief market watch

RUSSIA ECONOMICS · In Brief · 31 Mar 2023

The ruble continued to depreciate in recent weeks as investors weighed the effects of the current turbulence in the US and European banking sector and the likelihood of an economic recession. If this assumption is correct, global energy prices may be under pressure. It may add problems to the Rus...

The South African Reserve Bank hawkishly hikes interest rate, surprising the markets

SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 30 Mar 2023

The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced today that it is once again raising the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points- somewhat unexpectedly. This comes after the Bank had slowed its rate of increase to 25 bps in January of the current year following...

Bread for today, hunger for tomorrow

COLOMBIA · Report · 30 Mar 2023

The Petro administration’s new pension bill is potentially game-changing: fewer than 30% of Colombians of retirement age and beyond currently have access to old-age protection. Reform would generate massive movements of people and money, & create considerable fiscal impacts. Under any scenario un...

Haddad discusses the details of the new fiscal framework, and former President Jair Bolsonaro returns to Brazil after three months in the United States

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 30 Mar 2023

The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, has a meeting this morning with the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), to present the new fiscal framework. Then, along with the economic team, he will participate in a press conference to discuss the details of the framework. The text wil...

Major foreign grain exporter to stop buying Russian grain

CIS POLITICS · In Brief · 29 Mar 2023

On March 29 Cargill Russia announced that on July 1, 2023, it will cease the export of grain. Cargill is a major world agricultural commodity trader. The company has informed the Russian Ministry of Agriculture. Cargill is due to export 2.2 million tons of grains by July 2023. That is 4% of Russi...

The new fiscal framework may be presented this week, and the conflict in Congress regarding provisional measures continues

BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 29 Mar 2023

In a nod to Congress, Lula may ask Haddad to present the text of the new fiscal framework again to the president of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), in addition to party leaders. In other words, the matter will not necessarily be announced this week. It...

Interest rates unchanged, ending off-market sales of FX to energy importers announced today

HUNGARY · In Brief · 28 Mar 2023

There was no surprise at today's rate-setting Monetary Council meeting: all interest rates, including the 18% sterilisation rate, the 13% base rate and the 12.5-25% interest rate corridor remained unchanged, as expected (see chart below). Yet an important change of policy was announced: the selli...

Russia prepares new mobilization

CIS POLITICS · In Brief · 28 Mar 2023

Russia and the foreign media have reported since March 18 increasing signs of a call-up of military-aged men. In Udmurtia Region the Governor went on TV to convince people that no one will be conscripted but he asked men to volunteer ''to defend the Fatherland.'' In 2022 the conscription and the ...

Lasso's Situation Gets More Complicated

ECUADOR · In Brief · 27 Mar 2023

As expected, the Assembly submitted to the Constitutional Court the petition to initiate an impeachment of President Lasso. This petition is based on the report presented by an ad-hoc legislative commission dominated by the opposition, in which Lasso was accused virtually of everything the Const...

A lull in the storm

ISRAEL · In Brief · 27 Mar 2023

Netanyahu announced on March 26 that the legislation (second and third Parliamentary votes) geared towards changing the judicial system will be postponed until the summer Parliament session in order to try to reach a broadly acceptable compromise. The opposition generally supported this move (alt...

Solid budgetary performance in 2M23

KAZAKHSTAN · In Brief · 27 Mar 2023

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance reported that in 2M23, the country’s consolidated budget was in surplus equal to KZT695 bn, i.e., slightly above $1.5bn. This budget incorporates the Republican and local budgets, the National Fund, and state social funds (net of mutual transfers). Revenues of the...