Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | The European Union has a historically strong economic relationship with Africa, but its dominant position has gradually been challenged by the rise of China, especially as a key exporter to Africa. In 1995, China’s exports to Africa were only $1.8 billion, significantly lower than the EU’s exports of $45 billion. However, after nearly thirty years’ of increasing its manufacturing capacity, China’s exports to Africa reached…

Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Recently, the virtuous circle between wages and inflation has begun to strengthen. Following the highest wage hike in the past thirty-three years at the spring wage negotiation, nominal base wage surprised on the upside by rising +2.3% year-on-year in April, the largest increase since July ’94. Furthermore, with inflation expectations remaining above 2%, corporate service prices also picked up by +2.8% year-on-year in April. On…