Global Investing

Polish central bank governor Marek Belka doesn’t apportion a lot of importance to the fact that Poland can boast the second biggest improvement in the latest World Bank’s ease of doing business index, after Kosovo.

“This year we have improved, but I don’t care too much about it,”  Belka said at a meeting in London today.

Others do see a significant trend emerging from the data around Poland which paints an optimistic picture for those wishing to start and do business in Europe, but not necessarily in the developed markets.

As Charles Robertson, economist at Renaissance Capital, says in a note:

Emerging Europe has done the most to improve its rankings. Poland jumped 19 places, Ukraine rose 15 places, Mongolia increased 12, … Kazakhstan was up 7 places, Russia 6. Latin America has fallen back.

Armenia is on Poland’s heels as the world’s third most impressive upward mover, reaching 32nd place from last year’s 50th.

Where are the missing barrels of oil, asks Barclays Capital.

Oil inventories in the United States rose sharply last week, with demand for oil products  such as gasoline at the lowest in 15 years and crude stockpiles at the highest since last September. Americans, pinched in the wallet, are clearly cutting back on fuel use.

But worldwide, the inventories picture is different – Barclays calculates in  fact that oil stocks are around 50 million barrels below the seasonal average. And sustainable spare capacity in the market is less than 2 million barrels per day. What that means is that the world has “extremely limited buffers to absorb any one of the series of potential geopolitical mishaps.” (Barclays writes)

A big difference from the picture at the start of 2012. With the global economy weak, analysts predicted OPEC would need to pump 29.7 million barrels per day in the first quarter, more than a million barrels below what the group was actually pumping. Logic dictates inventories would have started to build.