By Andrés Velasco With the currencies of Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico hitting record lows recently, currency traders around the world are asking: How much further can emerging-market currencies weaken? The standard approach to answering this question takes a relatively normal base year and measures how much a country’s currency … Continue reading
Mexico and Colombia have now joined the “fragile five” grouping of emerging market (EM) economies, replacing India and Brazil, according to JPMorgan, the Financial Times (FT) reports. The two Latin American nations will now join Turkey, South Africa, and Indonesia to form the group of EM countries seen as the most overdependent on volatile foreign investment flows. In August 2013, as … Continue reading
STORY HIGHLIGHTS The first World Bank (IBRD) Green Bond Impact Report provides an overview of the environmental and social impacts expected from eligible projects that help World Bank client countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. The report also outlines some of the challenges in the approaches for impact measurement and reporting … Continue reading
Latin America’s recent economic fortunes highlight the region’s closer economic ties with Asia. China, in particular, has grown into a crucial source of demand for Latin American commodities over the past two decades, providing significant gains to the region. The flip side is that the ongoing structural slowdown of Chinese investment is weighing considerably on … Continue reading
Latin American currencies are in the ‘eye of the storm’ as currencies of Brazil, Mexico, and Chile could fall as much as 10 percent in the next few weeks amid tumbling commodity prices, growth concerns in China, renewed Fed fears, and a deterioration of domestic fundamentals, Societe Generale (SocGen) said in a bearish report published on Tuesday. SocGen is advising … Continue reading
Russia has overtaken the United States and China in terms of manufacturing competitiveness helped by a fall in oil prices and the country’s currency, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report from BCG evaluates the competitiveness of the world’s top 25 export economies, which account for nearly 90 percent of world exports … Continue reading
“Online trading giant Alibaba has expressed interest in doing business in Latin America with a particular eye on Mexico, Brazil and Argentina,” the China-based e-commerce company said in Mexico City on Saturday, Xinhua reports. Chinese consumers are eager to obtain Latin American products, especially fresh produce such as Mexico’s avocado, Sherri Wu, head of Alibaba’s International … Continue reading
By Mel Gurtov The American people have become used to government trickery in foreign affairs—wars and interventions based on lies and falsified evidence, “national security” used to justify the whittling away of privacy, classification of documents to hide embarrassing disclosures, massaging of budget figures to mask outrageous spending on arms, and demands for new weapons when … Continue reading
By Dr. Daniel Friedheim Businesses report that Mexico’s level of money laundering, bribery, and conflicts of interest is higher than Brazil’s. Mexico ranks only 103rd of 174 countries on fighting corruption, according to Transparency International, better than Russia but worse than Brazil, India, and China. So it is easy to imagine how a corruption mega-scandal … Continue reading
The plunge in world oil prices—from $105 to about $50 per barrel since mid-2014—has been a boon for oil-importing countries, while presenting challenges for oil exporters. By Robert Rennhack and Fabián Valencia In general, oil importers will enjoy faster growth, lower inflation, and stronger external positions, and most will not encounter any significant fiscal pressures. … Continue reading