PBOC’s Lent 105.5 B Yuan in Rollover of MLF Due in March The People's’ Bank of China lent 105.5 billion yuan or $16.67 billion to various banks on Wednesday under its medium-term lending facility for a year, according to released reports. The new MLF loans have a similar rollover value in the 1-year batch of MLFs that are due on the same day. Adding 189.5 billion in the same tenor to be expired on March 16. Moreover, the central bank added that they will avoid reverse repos on Wednesday morning. On December 14 last year, the PBOC augmented their interest rates on liquidity tools to 3.25 percent, as well as, the one-year MLF.
The Release of Government's EU Exit Analysis The EU free trade agreements still expected to cost the UK by 4.8 percent of its projected economic growth for the next 15 years, based on the confidential government ‘EU exit analysis’ released yesterday. The decline in growth amounted to £55 billion of the British government debt by 2033, which could further negate the expected ‘Brexit dividend’ by the supporters of the EU exit. The report was issued by the department of Exiting the EU committee. Moreover, Brexit Secretary David Davis stated that the published document should be kept confidential but some parts of the material were already leaked to the media last month. The alternative option led by Theresa May’s team is the “Membership of the single market” but was ruled out due to the possible drop in GDP by 1.6 percent. On one hand, the ‘no deal’ Brexit would return the UK trading with the EU-27 under the standards of the World Trade Organisation and would cost 7.7 percent of the GDP based on the government numbers. This could result in a surge of government borrowing by £20 billion and £80 billion, respectively. With this, there are assumptions that approximately 40,000 to 90,000 EU migrants are planning to leave the United Kingdom. Included in the analysis is the projected economic benefits from the reducing regulations. The government of Britain would likely create its original version of impact assessment, however, some of the think tanks are expected to see potential gains around zero and 2 percent only of the GDP. Nevertheless, the report does not mainly evaluate the short-term economic effect of Brexit. It further shows that the free trade deal with the United States would benefit the UK GDP by 0.2 percent in the longer term. While another concession with countries under the trans-Pacific and south-east Asia regional group such as Australia, China, India and New Zealand is expected to add 0.1 to 0.4 percent of GDP. Ministers of Britain are hoping to start the talks prior to the Brexit scheduled in March 2019, but this plan seems to be already abandoned.
UK Economy Lag Behind Other G20 Countries According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the British economy is expected to grow at a gradual pace compared with other major advanced or emerging countries. Prior the publication of the Spring Statement, the Paris-based organization revised upwards its economic outlook for Britain by 1.3% this year along with the strong global recovery. The forecast is higher than the initial estimate of 1.2% but remains to be the weakest in the Group of Twenty (G-20). The OECD projected that the most rapid growth from 2011 was led by US tax reductions and German expenditure. The think tank stated that the world economy stayed on course to boost its annual momentum to 3.9% in the next couple of years. The figure is relatively higher than the recent forecast in November 2018 of 3.7% and 3.6% in 2019. However, there are warnings that the recovery risk may subside due to the expansion of trade barriers and could further affect the growth and jobs. The OECD mentioned that increased in UK inflation would continue to squeeze the household income. Also, the sluggish business investment could affect growth for the following years until 2020 due to risks caused by the Brexit talks. The forecast for UK economic growth in 2019 was left unchanged at 1.1%, which recorded to be the slowest progress next to Japan. Economists predicted that the British economy will grow by 1.5% on an annual basis, while Chancellor Philip Hammond is expected to issue an optimistic outlook of the revised official forecasts on Tuesday. Overall, the latest projection of the OECD showed that the entire G20 countries, except for Russia, will expand at a faster pace for the current year versus the November forecast.
British Chambers of Commerce Upgrade UK Economic Outlook The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) lifted its forecast for the UK economic growth, however, showed warning that UK will be the worst performing economy among other G7 countries in 2020. The GDP outlook of the BCC is 1.1 to 1.4 percent for this year and 1.3 to 1.5 percent in 2019.While, the initial growth forecast is 1.6 percent for 2020, as the revision was steered by the slightly stronger than anticipated consumer expenditure. Moreover, exports from Britain is predicted to remain stable amid robust global growth. On the other hand, imports could possibly resume its expansion and the net trade contribution to the country’s GDP in the short term appears to be limited, as the pound support Britain’s overall net trade position. In spite of the increases, the UK GDP is expected to remain below the historical average during the forecasting period. The non-profit organization stated that productivity is projected to have slight improvement compared over its estimated outcome but continued to be weak restrained by the underlying issues within the country, such as skills shortages and failure in infrastructure investment. The BCC expects that inflation will pick up and start to ease in the near term since the impact of the post-Brexit toned down upon the weakening the Sterling. Furthermore, there are assumptions that the next hike in UK official interest rates will reach 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018, which could be followed by another rise in Q1 next year. The business body foresees that public sector borrowing in Britain will come in over £13.4bn for the next three years compared with the projection issued at the Spring Statement by the Office for Budget Responsibility last week.
March Fed Rate Hike Marks an Optimistic Outlook for 2018 Full story at: https://goo.gl/b2M3WW #economicnews #thinkbigtradeforex #forexmart
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Sluggish Q1 Growth Breaks The Longest Growth Since 1991 The largest economy cooled down sharply in the first quarter despite the onset of flu and strikes, which occurs simultaneously for the region that affecting negatively good growth rates. The annualized growth rate of Germany slowed down to 1.2% from 2.5% in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to the record of the Federal Statistics Office on Tuesday. Although, a sharp slowdown is already anticipated as it did not meet expectations on the U.S. growth rate of 2.3% in the same period. However, various factors such as the strike of flu and numerous strikes on metals and engineering sectors, which causes slow down and most of the private sectors anticipate the recovery of economic activities in the second quarter or more. Since 1991, Germany undergoes the longest growth recorded for the fifteenth consecutive quarter, according to the Statistics office. The momentum on investment spending has overshadowed the economic growth in the first three months of the year. On the other hand, exports slid down in the fourth quarter in the previous year. A calm activity for the first quarter due to the more sickly staff at a higher level in ten years in February in reference to the BKK association of company health-insurance funds in Germany. A recorded of 500,000 workers in the metals and electrical engineering sectors contributed to the warning strikes in the latter weeks of January and early February, as stated by the IG Metall labor union of Germany. They were able to get a solid pay deal from the members. However, economic indicators reflect that other European economies are also affected by the cold diseases and strikes. Later this Tuesday, the European Union's statistics agency will release the eurozone gross domestic product, which measures the economic output of goods and services. An increase was seen in the first quarter with 1.7% at an annualized rate, which is less than the 2.7% growth in the last quarter of 2017.
NZ Retail Sales Recorded Slowest Growth in Q1 The retail sales volume in New Zealand had expanded during Jan-Mar period but also recorded its slowest rate after five years, this further indicates the possible slackening of economic growth in the following years. On an annual basis, the official data showed that retail sales volume grew by 3 percent on Monday, which also imply a sharp decline versus the 5.4 percent rise in the previous quarter and the weakest growth from July-September 2012. Sales gained 0.1 percent only based on a quarterly growth, which is lower than the rough estimate of 1 percent increase projected by the economists. Footwear and clothing had decreased by 5.1 percent while motor vehicles are down to 1.1 percent. The figures led to speed-bumps in the economy, whereas, many developed countries in the past years envied but it begins to deal with some headwinds due to weak immigration and expansion in the housing market. The administration was able to secure strong economic growth because of immigration levels and stable price of dairy products at 3 percent per year despite the slight decline to 2.9 percent in 2017. New Zealand's new Labour-led government took control in October and pledged to settle the housing crisis in the country along with some plans to improve property investment tax and officially ban foreigners to purchase residential properties in NZ. On Thursday, the expanded government investment declared in the annual budget would likely negate the sluggish consumption expenditure, with the 3.8 percent GDP growth outlook from the Treasury forecast in 2019. In addition to it, the GDP data for the first quarter is scheduled on June 21.
EU Bloc Negotiates with Australia and New Zealand The European bloc confirmed yesterday the start of free trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand in order to establish new relations against the increasing trade tensions with the United States. The European Commission represents the 28 EU countries and negotiates about its plans and agreement towards the AU and NZ despite the warnings on opening the EU markets to generate farm products like beef and butter. According to forecasts from EU, its exports towards Australia and New Zealand may expand by a third in case that trade agreements were finalized. Considering the fact that its trade partnership with the US was suspended by the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, the EU shifted its focus to build allies with open markets and struck agreements with countries on the same mind. The bloc also deals with the result of steel and aluminum tariffs set by the US and the sanctions they would impose against Iran, which could lead to restriction of certain foreign businesses. The EU closed the deal with Japan, Mexico and Singapore and currently working with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
PBOC Increased the 28-repo rates by 2.85 percent The People’s Bank of China adjusted their rates higher on the 28-day reverse bond repurchase agreements to keep with the pace on previous increases in tenors for the past two months. According to the report from the online site of the PBOC, the 28-day reverse repos raised from 2.80 percent to 2.85 percent. This move was enacted after the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank had also raised their rates on March 21 which signifies that Beijing is keeping up with the global market trends despite all of the financial risks in their homeland. Moreover, the central bank added 30 billion yuan into money markets, particularly on their 7-day and 28-day rates on Monday, where the seven-day was set at 2.55 percent based on their given statements.
