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Daily Overview of Global Markets & the SEE Region (Friday, 10 May, 2019)
HIGHLIGHTS
WORLD ECONOMIC & MARKET DEVELOPMENTS
GLOBAL MARKETS: Market worries over further escalation in the US/China trade war are on the rise after the US administration decided to raise tariffs to 25% from 10% currently on more than $200bn Chinese imports. The tariff increase came into effect today at 04:01 GMT and China vowed to retaliate with “necessary countermeasures”. The good news is that China has not left the negotiating table so far. According to the White House spokesman, trade discussions with the Chinese delegation which arrived earlier this week in Washington will resume later today for the second day. Besides developments in the US-China trade row, investor focus today should also be on inflation numbers in the US, industrial production data across the Euro area and UK Q1 GDP data.
GREECE: At an Economic Chamber of Greece conference, Peter Dolman, IMF mission head to Greece argued that the economic stimulus package recently announced by the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is in the “wrong direction” and that a number of these measures are not growth-oriented in the medium- and long-term. Meanwhile, the 10-year GGB yield increased further yesterday closing at 3.538%, while at the time of writing it stands at 3.543%. On the economic data front, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in February 2019 was 18.5% compared to 20.6% in February 2018 and the upward revised 18.6% in January 2019.
SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE
SERBIA: Yesterday in its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) kept the key policy rate (KPR) unchanged at 3.0%, as broadly expected. Despite the downside risks in the GDP growth outlook, the NBS preferred to maintain a wait-and-see mode, amid the prevailing uncertainties in the global environment. In other news, earlier in the week, in Belgrade, three agreements worth USD142mn between Serbia and the World Bank were signed referring to the modernisation of tax administration, the improvement of the work of e-administration and the facilitation of regional trade.
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