In the latest episode of The Weekly Briefing from Capital Economics, Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing addresses the White House announcement of higher tariffs on Chinese goods and what that signals about the direction of the global economic system. He …
17th May 2024
Weak growth a concern for the central bank Bank Indonesia is the only central bank in the region with a mandate to ensure currency stability. While we had not been expecting the central bank to raise interest rates at its April meeting , the move didn’t …
Overseas loans by Chinese banks peaked in late 2021 and have since been curtailed in response to increased debt problems among EM borrowers. While these strains are partly a consequence of global shocks, they have also underscored some flaws with China’s …
16th May 2024
We held an online Drop-In session today to discuss the Biden administration’s new tariffs on goods from China. (See a recording here .) This Update answers several of the questions that we received about the direct effects of the tariffs and what they say …
15th May 2024
The tariffs announced today on US imports from China won’t cause much direct economic damage since trade in the affected goods is already low. But US economic sanctions on China seem to act like a ratchet: they only ever get tighter. In many areas that …
14th May 2024
The impact of the US tariffs announced today will barely register on the paltry flows of solar panels and electric vehicles that China directly exports to the US. However, the new tariffs could have a bigger impact on imports of Chinese-made batteries, …
After weeks of rising tensions around the question of Chinese industrial overcapacity, the Biden administration has announced a new raft of tariffs on goods from China. But what will these latest actions mean for the US and Chinese economies? Will Europe …
What’s missing from the China overcapacity row, that UK GDP data and an exclusive inflation briefing …
10th May 2024
Europe will raise barriers to trade and investment with China in the coming months and years. But policymakers will try to balance conflicting objectives so the result may well be a gradual rather than sudden increase in protectionism with measures …
7th May 2024
In the latest episode of The Weekly Briefing from Capital Economics, Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing unpacks a tumultuous week in markets that ended on a high. April's soft payrolls report may have given investors much-needed evidence that US …
4th May 2024
Is Saudi Arabia moving away from China’s orbit? Reports that the US and Saudi Arabia are close to a new security pact would, if confirmed, cause us to re-evaluate our view of the Kingdom’s alignment in a fracturing global economy. Prior to the start of …
2nd May 2024
The anti-dumping duties that the EU is likely to impose on Chinese imports in the coming months will have little macroeconomic impact. But more goods will be targeted in the next couple of years with significant implications for some sectors and …
30th April 2024
A second Trump presidency would almost certainly lead to a protectionist lurch from the US, with profound implications for the emerging world. But which EMs would see the biggest hit to export demand? What would a more isolationist shift signal about the …
29th April 2024
It wasn’t so long ago that markets would barely take note of a major summit or meeting between political leaders. These days, bilateral get-togethers are followed by a scouring of accompanying communiques for signs of shifting geo-political allegiances …
16th April 2024
Janet Yellen lent official voice to resurgent global worries about the threat of Chinese overcapacity when she pointedly criticised Beijing’s overinvestment and underpowered consumption during her trip there earlier this month. But are the US Treasury …
13th April 2024
Before Neil Shearing gets on to discussing the key takeaways from our latest Global Economic Outlook, he talks to David Wilder about the inflationary risks stemming from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge at Baltimore’s port. The Capital …
28th March 2024
In a big year for elections, this is the biggest. India’s general election begins on 19 th April, with nearly a billion Indians registered to vote and Narendra Modi on course to win a third term as prime minister. But even if the conclusion seems …
18th March 2024
It's been a tough few years for China's stock market, which has been, at times, one of the worst performers in the world. But it's turned around over the past couple of months, with some policy support seemingly on the way and the economy gathering a bit …
Donald Trump’s threat to impose a blanket 10% tariff on all US imports would hit Vietnam hard. But provided they were accompanied by a 60% tariff on all imports from China (as Trump has also threated), then Vietnam should benefit from a new round of Trump …
A few hot(ish) US inflation prints and the market has become spooked about how easily the Federal Reserve can get back to its 2% target. In this latest episode of The Weekly Briefing from Capital Economics, Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing discusses …
15th March 2024
“New Three” Chinese exports = must-watch data …
14th March 2024
Reshoring still more myth than reality Although it has been a priority for the last three administrations, the reshoring of lost manufacturing jobs remains more myth than reality. There has been a significant boom in the construction of hi-tech …
12th March 2024
The green transition will deal a significant blow to EM oil producers that have failed to save their windfalls (Nigeria, Colombia, Angola), but boost the export revenues of economies such as Chile and South Africa that are endowed with the raw materials …
4th March 2024
Neil Shearing has been in the Middle East and Asia, talking to clients about the macro outlook. In meetings from Dubai to Singapore to Hong Kong, some questions kept coming up again and again and, in this week’s episode, he goes through them with David …
1st March 2024
Deflation in China has added to disinflationary forces in the advanced economies as its export prices have fallen sharply. The direct impact has not been huge, accounting for only a small fraction of the 4ppt drop in DM headline CPI inflation last year, …
26th February 2024
For all the blustering about trade wars, the fact is that Donald Trump’s punitive actions against China during his presidency didn’t do much to hurt its economy. But it’ll be a very different story if he wins in November and makes good on his pledge to …
23rd February 2024
Donald Trump’s previous tariffs did surprisingly little damage to China’s economy, but China may find it harder to shrug off the damage in a rematch. Mr Trump is threatening larger tariff increases if he is elected again. And the factors that cushioned …
Indonesians go to the polls on 14 th February to elect a successor to Joko Widodo, the president popularly known as Jokowi, who pushed through some key reforms to secure the country’s long-term economic future. Will his successor build on those efforts …
1st February 2024
Trump’s new tariffs would accelerate global fracturing If he wins this year’s presidential election, Donald Trump’s plans for a universal 10% tariff on all imports and tariffs of up to 60% on imports from China specifically would subtract up to 1.5% from …
31st January 2024
Egypt needs enhanced IMF deal urgently Egypt’s foreign currency woes remained in the spotlight this week, highlighting the importance of getting an enhanced IMF deal over the line in order to avoid a disorderly balance of payments crisis. This week …
18th January 2024
The outsized attention paid to Taiwan’s presidential election this past weekend is in part a reflection of the breakdown in relations between the US and China and the 21 st century’s big geopolitical question of which of these countries will dominate the …
15th January 2024
With US and UK strikes on Houthis in the headlines and Taiwanese voting in their flashpoint election, Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing unpicks what the now- clichéd idea that we live in a “more dangerous world” actually means for thinking through macro …
12th January 2024
We still think that China’s equities could fare well relative to others in the near term, but also that their longer-run prognosis is fairly bleak. The challenging times for China’s stock market have continued today, with the country’s major indices …
10th January 2024
Note: W e held a client briefing straight after the election weekend to discuss what the vote means for Taiwan and the global economy. View the on-demand recording here . China may respond to a victory for Tsai Ing-wen’s chosen successor in Saturday’s …
The sharp drop in net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India over the past year was in part a consequence of the rise in global interest rates and the worsening global economic backdrop. But it was also due to a clampdown on the roundtripping …
9th January 2024
The optimism about Mexico’s economic prospects from the “nearshoring” of supply chains looks overdone in our view. Sectors where Mexico is already well established, such as autos and some electronics products, stand to benefit. But without major reforms …
8th January 2024
Note: Join our post-Taiwan election online briefing on Monday, 15th January to find out what the results mean for its economy and for US-China relations. Register here for the 20-minute session. In a busy electoral calendar, seven countries in Emerging …
3rd January 2024
In a busy year for elections worldwide, Taiwan’s is likely to be among the most consequential. 2023 was probably Taiwan’s weakest year of economic growth since the Global Financial Crisis – and the coming year isn’t likely to be much better as external …
2nd January 2024
Vietnam in the “lean US camp” Vietnam this week played host to President Xi Jinping of China and in doing so became the only country in the world this year to have received state visits from the leaders of both the US and China. During Xi’s visit, the …
15th December 2023
Tensions between the Philippines and China have once again flared up in the South China Seas. However, the fact that the Philippines is not closely integrated into China’s economy means the economic fallout from the deterioration in relations with China …
11th December 2023
Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing warns the potential threat to fiscal positions from higher rates is “perhaps the most important question hanging over the outlook for the next couple of years”. In this episode, he speaks to Head of Research Vicky …
3rd December 2023
Tensions within OPEC+ rise as threat of cut looms OPEC+ was meant to be in the spotlight this weekend but, in a surprise move, the meeting has been delayed until Thursday. The slide in oil prices and the Israel-Hamas conflict suggest that output quotas …
23rd November 2023
Markets are continuing to debate “recession or no recession” but, as Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing tells David Wilder in this latest episode, the debate is too binary and fails to take into account the different types of recession that the monetary …
17th November 2023
A thawing in China/US tensions could, in our view, help “risky” assets in China for a while by reducing the “China risk premium” that seems to have emerged. But we doubt it would fully reverse the recent underperformance of China’s equity markets relative …
16th November 2023
During the past decade, the global economy has transitioned out of an era in which globalisation was the key driver of economic and financial relationships into one shaped by geopolitics. Previously, most governments had believed that closer economic …
Central bankers have a tough task when it comes to communicating with markets – just ask the Bank of England’s Huw Pill, who started the week hinting at rate cuts and ended it with an insistence that the current setting has to remain in place to quash …
10th November 2023
The splintering of the world economy into competing US and China-aligned blocs is dominating the macro and financial and commodities markets outlook. But how is this fracturing process evolving, which parts of the economy are most vulnerable, and what do …
8th November 2023
The past few years have seen Saudi Arabia continue to move away from the US orbit and, as part of our work on global fracturing, we no longer consider Saudi to be unaligned between the US and China. Instead, we now think that it leans more towards …
7th November 2023
Over half of cross-border settlement now in RMB Earlier this week, the People’s Bank published its annual report on renminbi internationalisation. The message from the 84-page document is that global use of China’s currency has been gaining momentum …
3rd November 2023
Foreign direct investment into China, as measured by the balance of payments data, has collapsed. It is tempting to pin this on global fragmentation or a loss of confidence in China’s economic prospects. But the key driver appears to be more prosaic: the …
30th October 2023
