Good news? In Russia, JP Morgan claims to have processed interest payments on two of the country’s sovereign issues, raising expectations of default on its debt for the first time since 1998. This has not prevented Standard & Poor’s from downgrading the country’s credit rating by one notch to CC, just two notches above default, in its belief that the country’s debt is “highly vulnerable to default”. In China, according…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine are likely to have devastating consequences. But this will depend on whether Russia manages to bypass the sanctions or, at the very least, mitigate them. One important consideration to answer this question is China’s potential role in offering a helping hand to the Russian economy. China’s economic size and financial clout,…
Luis Alcaide | Early morning of 26 February 2022. Invasion of Russian troops. I don’t know whether I’m in Madrid or in the Bucharest of that morning on 21 August 1968. At that time, 170,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers were invading Czechoslovakia, and the Prague Spring was a political and economic threat to the communist bloc. Czechoslovakia, which was a developed pre-World War II society and economy, offered in 1968 economic…
J.P. Marín-Arrese | Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the US has shown utter disdain for Russia. It flouted the pledge made to Gorbatchev to keep former Warsaw Pact countries out of NATO so that Russia could have a security buffer zone along its frontiers. It openly invited the Ukrainian government to disregard the Minsk agreement, which was brokered to ensure that Ukraine would remain neutral. John Kerry, the former…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Given the delicate situation in Ukraine and the US imposition of sanctions on Russia, followed by the European Union (EU), it seems important to assess how much Russia can rely on China as a trading partner. Although trade between the EU and Russia has lost some steam since Putin’s “Pivoting to the East” announced during his 2021 campaign and the sanctions imposed in 2014 due…
Atradius Research | Using a policy of fiscal austerity and credible inflation targeting, the Russian government has successfully insulated its economy from external shocks, including sanctions. Despite its success, the ‘Fortress’ strategy has also come at a cost: discontent among the population is growing over stagnating economic growth and declining real incomes. If Russia is to raise its income level, more robust reforms are needed to overcome structural impediments to…
Angela Freyre (Julius Baer) | Russia’s central bank slashed its benchmark interest rate to a post-Soviet low as the economy enters a deep recession fuelled by the fall in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic. The bank lowered its key rate by 100 basis points to 4.5%, following a 50 basis-point cut in April.
Shaun Riordan | I have been reading a whole series of market forecasts for 2019. While it is relieving that at last they include political or geopolitical factors, I was struck by those factors, which could have dramatic impact on companies or markets which were left out, or misinterpreted.
Shaun Riordan | Social media companies may be sophisticated in the way they monetise data, but they remain remarkable naïve, almost innocent, when it comes to politics.
Caixin | As two of the most significant economies driving global growth today, commentators often compare the emerging market behemoths, China and India. In recent times, the two countries have eclipsed Brazil, Russia and South Africa, their BRICS counterparts, in terms of economic growth. However, there are significant differences between the two Asian economies.