The Russian finance ministry reported its preliminary estimate of the federal budget deficit for 2020 at RUB4.1tr, or 3.8% GDP, which is smaller than the RUB4.6tr (4.2% of GDP) deficit we anticipated due to better-than-expected revenue collection and...

Today, theSARB’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)opted to hold rates at 3.5%, with three members voting to hold versus two who preferred a 25bps cut (the same split as the last meeting on 19 November). The government has initiated another "Level 3" lo...

The Bank of Russia released its first estimateof the foreign debt as of year-end 2020, which gives additional cover to the general balance of payments data we covered earlier. In 2020, the composition of the net private capital outflow from Russia ch...

As expected, the European Central Bank, left all policy instruments unchanged and its official communication was almost a verbatim copy of the December communication. Key in this decision are what the ECB calls “preserving favourable financing condit...

Today the CBRT’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) opted to hold its one-week repo rate at 17%, in line with Bloomberg consensus. After such aggressive action at the last two MPC meetings (see here and here), we think the reaction is appropriate. Turke...

There is now real momentum in the international community towards normalising Sudan’s relationship with the West, and the ultimate prize of securing heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) debt relief, two years after the ousting of long-time ruler Pr...