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…

Bankinter| The Shanghai local government has approved measures to support the real estate sector: it is reducing the amount of the mandatory down payment and the interest rate on mortgages. The measure is expected to be extended to other cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen. The down payment required from buyers is reduced by 10% to 20% of the property value for first home buyers and up to 30% for…