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Economy

Charts Showing Good and Bad News for Nigeria's Economy Last Week – BNN

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(Bloomberg) — Africa’s largest economy had a week of good and bad news as the oil price rebounded to the highest level in two months, while the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on consumers and business activity became clearer.

Crude prices have doubled since hitting a two-decade low in April, climbing past $40 a barrel after OPEC+ cuts started taking excess supplies from the market. With oil bringing in 90% of foreign exchange revenue for the continent’s largest producer, this will boost government income and dollar liquidity. Ironically, Nigeria is among the countries accused by the production group of not fully complying with the reductions that helped push up prices in the last month.

The following four charts show some of the bad and the good for Nigeria.

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If oil prices stabilize close to the current levels until the end of the year, it would add modest upside risks to forecasts for economic growth, public finances and international reserves, said Mahmoud Harb, a director at Fitch Ratings. A 10% rise in the full year’s average crude price above the company’s current forecast of $35 per barrel would improve Nigeria’s current-account deficit by about 1.5% of gross domestic product, he said.

Yields on Nigerian bonds maturing in 2047 fell from an all-time high of 13.2% on March 19 to 8.6% on Friday, a sign that investor concern has eased. Although the West African nation has ruled out going to international bond markets this year, the cost of raising new debt will be relatively lower now if it chooses to.

Although the purchasing managers index of Stanbic IBTC Bank and IHS Markit’ rose last month, it remained below 50, suggesting the economy of Africa’s largest crude producer will shrink in the second quarter. The central bank said last week Nigeria may avert a recession and that the drop in GDP could be less than the 3.4% projected by the International Monetary Fund, but its own manufacturing PMI fell to 42.4 in May after staying above 50 for 36 consecutive months. The manufacturing PMI compiled by Lagos-based FBNQuest Capital fell to 43.3 in May from 45.8, with all sub-indices in contracting territory.

“The recession this year will be smaller than in advanced and many peer economies because of the limits to Nigeria’s integration within the global economy,” analysts at investment banking firm, FBNQuest wrote in a note on Friday. “For the same reason its U-shaped recovery in 2021 is likely to disappoint. Household demand remains squeezed.”

Nigeran consumers are feeling the impact of the disruption in economic activities, data released Friday by the statistics agency shows. At least 79% of respondents in a survey said their incomes have decreased since mid-March, when restrictions were imposed to curb the spread the pandemic. More than 42% who were working before the pandemic now say they no longer do and 51% of households were forced to buy less food due to higher costs.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Economy

Bank of Canada walking a ‘tightrope’ as analysts forecast inflation jump in February

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Economists expect inflation reaccelerated to 3.1% in February

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People banking on an interest rate cut may not like the direction Canadian inflation is heading if analyst expectations prove correct.

Bloomberg analysts expect inflation to reaccelerate to 3.1 per cent in February when Statistics Canada releases its latest consumer price index (CPI) data on Tuesday, following a slowdown to 2.9 per cent year over year in January.

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Article contentCPI core-trim and core-median, the measures the Bank of Canada is most focused on, are forecast to come in unchanged from the previous month at 3.3 per cent and 3.4 per cent, respectively.

Policymakers made it clear when they held interest rates on March 6 that inflation remained too widespread and persistent for them to begin cutting.

Here’s what economists are saying about tomorrow’s inflation numbers and what they mean for interest rates.

‘Can’t afford missteps’: Desjardins Financial

The Bank of Canada’s preferred measures “have become biased,” Royce Mendes, managing director and head of macro strategy, and Tiago Figueiredo, macro strategist, at Desjardins Financial, said in a note on March 18, “likely overestimating the true underlying inflation rate.”

They estimated the central bank’s preferred measures of core-trim and core-median inflation are overemphasizing items in the CPI basket of goods whose prices are rising more than five per cent. After adjusting for the “biases,” they estimate the bank’s measures are more in the neighbourhood of three per cent — which is at the top of the bank’s inflation target range of one to three per cent.

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Article content“If the Bank of Canada ignores our findings, officials risk leaving monetary policy restrictive for too long, inflicting unnecessary pain on households and businesses,” they said.

Markets have significantly scaled back their rate-cut expectations based on the central bank’s previous comments. Royce and Figueiredo are now calling for a first cut in June and three cuts of 25 basis points for the year.

“Given the tightrope Canadian central bankers are walking, they can’t afford any missteps,” they said.

‘Inflict too much damage’: National Bank

The danger exists that interest rates could end up hurting Canada’s economy more than intended, Matthieu Arseneau, Jocelyn Paquet and Daren King, economists at National Bank of Canada, said in a note.

“As the Bank of Canada’s latest communications have focused on inflation resilience rather than signs of weak growth, there is a risk that it will inflict too much damage on the economy by maintaining an overly restrictive monetary policy,” they said.

They argue there is already plenty of evidence pointing to the economy’s decline, including slowing gross domestic product per capita, which has fallen for six straight quarters. The jobs market is also on the fritz with the private sector having generated almost no new positions since June 2023, they added.

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Article content“Moreover, business survey data do not point to any improvement in this area over the next few months, with a significant proportion of companies reporting falling sales and a return to normal in the proportion of companies experiencing labour shortages,” the economists said.

Despite all these signs of weakness, inflation is stalling, they said, adding it is being overly influenced by historic population growth and the impact of housing and mortgage-interest costs.

The trio expect very tepid growth for 2024 of 0.3 per cent.

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Rising gas prices: RBC Economics

Higher energy prices likely boosted the main year-over-year inflation figure to 3.1 per cent in February, Royal Bank of Canada economists Carrie Freestone and Claire Fan said in a note.

Gasoline prices rose almost four per cent in February from the month before. But the pair believe a weakened Canadian economy and slumping consumer spending mean “price pressures in Canada are more likely to keep easing and narrowing (to fewer items in the CPI basket of goods).

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Economy

China Growth Beats Estimates, Adding Signs Economy Gained Traction With Stimulus

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China’s strong factory output and investment growth at the start of the year raised doubts over how soon policymakers will step up support still needed to boost demand and reach an ambitious growth target.

Industrial output rose 7% in January-February from the same period a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday, the fastest in two years and significantly exceeding estimates. Growth in fixed-asset investment accelerated to 4.2%, strongest since April. Retail sales increased 5.5%, roughly in line with projections.

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China’s retail and industrial data lifts economy, but real estate drags

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Image for article titled China’s new retail and industrial data beat expectations — but signs still point to trouble ahead

 

 

Photo: Florence Lo (Reuters)

 

 

Official economic data out of China for the January and February period came in better than expected. Industrial output rose 7%, higher than the 5% forecast by economists in a Reuters poll, and sped up from the 6.8% growth in December, according to data published Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Meanwhile, retail sales grew 5.5%, better than the 5.2% predicted by analysts but slowed from the previous period’s 7.4%.

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Still, the country’s troubled real estate sector continues to weigh on the economy: Investment in property development fell 9%. Commercial real estate sales are also down double-digit percentages.

“The national economy maintained the momentum of recovery and growth and got off to a stable start,” the statistics office said in its release. Beijing typically releases combined data for January and February to smooth over distortions caused by the Lunar New Year holidays.

China’s shaky domestic demand

Clouding the strong numbers from Monday’s data release are the persistent signs of weak domestic demand in China. New bank lending in China fell more than expected in February, according to Reuters calculations based on People’s Bank of China data.

Total outstanding yuan loans grew by 9.7% last month, a record low in data going back to 2003, according to Bloomberg. The sluggish borrowing demand comes even as the Chinese central bank made a surprise cut in the amount of cash that banks must hold in reserve, suggesting the stimulus measure has had little impact. And Beijing’s exhortations for unleashing “new quality productivity” (also translated as “new quality productive forces”) remains more rhetorical than substantive, particularly absent deeper structural reforms to the country’s economy.

With shaky demand at home, China’s bid to hit a GDP growth target of 5% this year will likely mean leaning heavily on its export machine. But that gambit will also face hurdles as governments, including the EU and Brazil, launch probes into China’s allegedly unfair trade practices. Separately, the U.S. is considering whether to investigate Chinese shipbuilding following a petition from major American labor unions.

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