Following the end of its long rate cutting cycle last month, the CBT remained on hold and kept the policy rate (one-week repo rate) at 8.25% at the July rate setting meeting, in line with expectations. The CBT has adopted a more cautious stance latel...

For manufacturing activities not easily replaced by automation or 3D printing, which countries win share from China? Low wages and scale matter most in this segment: We plot wage curve up to China in countries with over 40mn population. Labour flexib...

Even though the majority of industrial companies restarted production in May, the rebound was not balanced. In year-on-year terms, industrial production (calendar adjusted) was down 19.9% and, not adjusting for working days, it was more than 30% lowe...

Accordingly, the deteriorating trend in the 12-month rolling current account balance that started in the last quarter of 2019 has gained pace in recent months and continued in May with US$-8.2 billion vs US$+8.7 billion at end-2019. For non-debt crea...

“Wider Europe” refers to a geographically disparate collection of countries (stretching from Eastern Europe and former CIS, to Turkey, and to Iceland). Kazakhstan does not appear to be accelerating its reform and privatisation efforts in response to...

Following a gradual reversal in foreign trade in late 2019, with core import growth exceeding that of core exports, we have seen an acceleration in the last few months as the sharp contraction in Turkey’s main trading partners has weighed on exports....