Category: Economy

Climate Report: Extreme Weather Will Continue to Pound US and Global Economy

Throughout the Northern Hemisphere this summer, heat waves have been breaking records and sustaining wildfires of unprecedented fury. These events are providing further proof that a changing climate continues to lead to severe consequences for humanity. At least 85 people were  killed during the recent series of wildfires that struck California; 249 are listed as missing. Nearly 19,000 buildings, most of them homes, have been destroyed. A report released by the White House and created by the US Global Change Research Program states that an increase in climate change could continue to cause wildfires, heat waves and strong hurricanes across the United States. …

US Trade War with China Spells Opportunity for Brazil

The recent trade war initiated by the US with tariffs against several of its major trade partners has led to a reshuffling of trade alliances across the world. One of the major winners of this trade war is Brazil. The South American superpower is now the largest exporter of soybeans to China and the eastern power has been making major infrastructure investments into Brazilian agriculture, marking the development of the trade partnership between the two countries. Brazil’s agriculture industry has been experiencing tremendous growth in recent years and this growth is expected to continue under a new government which has stated its support for the agriculture industry and foreign investment.…

Secrets of the Exponential

Evolve or die. Certainly a harsh way to perceive the world around us but make no mistake this maxim is more appropriate today than ever before. With the relentless rise of populations, the rapid degradation of our environment and an unprecedented depletion of our most vital resources, such driving pressures are testing the frontiers of mankind and catalyzing innovation in the very way we live and do business.

A new commercial reality is emerging. In order to succeed, create true value and build the new world order in this new economic age we must achieve exponential progress in four key domains – sustainability, efficiency, integrated information systems as well as circular production and consumption.…

Brazil – Responding to Emerging Markets Uncertainty

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”

– Winston Churchill

It’s not a view widely held and even less in evidence, but we believe that Dilma Rousseff deserves a lot of sympathy from the Brazilian electorate. Seven months into her second term, during which time the global environment for emerging markets has softened quite rapidly, the irony is that this technocrat ‘gets it’, and is making many of the tough financial decisions that investors demanded during much of her first term in office and which will accelerate a return to growth for the country.…

Divergent Paths Open Up in the Commodity Sector

A report just released by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology states 2015 sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific will be the highest in 19 years, are continuing to rise and may surpass the record temperatures set in 1997. El Niño influenced sea surface temperatures are currently 2.9F above normal and are forecast to climb by an additional 4.9F in total by the end of December 2015 and start of 2016.

In response, investors have been fast increasing their exposure to agricultural investments, through indices or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These saw net inflows of $800m during April and May 2015, in marked contrast to the net outflows of $2.4 billion during Q4 2014.…

Gold – Gone in 60 Seconds

First the good news; the gold price bounced on Thursday morning as the US$ weakened slightly. Now the bad – it still leaves the metal just off five-year lows and still smarting from its largest percentage sell off of 4% in the space of a minute early on Monday, July 20th when bullion to the value of $500 million was sold in a flash during Asian trading hours. Large sections of the market are piling on the pressure and forecasting/guessing/hoping that the price this year will fall below $1,000 an ounce at some point during 2015. (On Thursday evening in London, gold was trading at $1,093.5 an ounce).…

Brazil and the Benefits of Club Membership

The possible death throes of Greece’s membership of the Euro should not detract from the union’s core attractions. The forerunner of today’s European Community (EC), the European Economic Union (EEC) was set up as a trade body in 1958 to strengthen the economic and social ties across a violent and dysfunctional continent. Its two key members, France and Germany, had fought each other three times over the previous seventy-five years: it was reasoned that drawing both countries and their outliers together in a web of trade would allow for a more prosperous and peaceful continent. It’s worked and yet hand in hand with its enlargement, its ambitions have also expanded.…

Indispensable Partners in the Americas

“Brazil is not only one of the most important countries in the Western Hemisphere but is a global leader on a whole range of issues… including climate change, energy, educational exchanges, science and technology.” (Barack Obama, 2015)

“We have celebrated an upward trajectory in our relations.” (Dilma Rousseff, 2015) 

Both sides can (rightly) claim that the first state visit by a Brazilian Head of State to the White House in a decade was a great success. The Summit reflected the strengthening and increasingly multi-faceted partnership between the top two economic powers in the Western Hemisphere, and highlighted significant trade opportunities and geo-strategic considerations for the rest of the world.…

Will The Real Brazil Please Stand Up

“Brazil is the country of the future; and will always remain so…”
Charles de Gaulle, President of France

“Wow! Brazil is big…”
George W. Bush, President of the USA

As the country beds down at the start of Dilma Rousseff’s second term as President, which Brazil will dominate for the rest of this decade, and possibly beyond?

There are two Brazils; the first comprises the world’s fifth largest both by size and population and its seventh largest economy, both nominally and by purchasing power parity. The country can only be described using a number of superlatives, underpinned by a wide range of improving and expanding indicators, and a generous and increasingly important resource base.…

A Shift in Mexico’s Fiscal Policy Bolsters Optimism for 2015

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reform to break free from the three decades of slow growth, low productivity, pervasive labour market informality and high-income inequality. 2015 will see the results of the ‘Pacto Por Mexico’ agreement, where major structural measures have been legislated to improve economic competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure, telecommunications and the tax system. If fully implemented, these reforms are forecasted to increase annual trend per capita GDP growth by as much as one percentage point over the next ten years.

Going for Growth in 2015 – Reforms Made by the ‘Pacto Por Mexico’ Agreement

  • Reducing barriers to foreign direct investment: The wireless, fixed-line, satellite, media, insurance and leasing sectors have been opened more substantially to FDI in 2014.