Nigeria’s mighty economy
In a world of slowing growth (China), minimal growth (United States) and outright recession (Britain), it is startling to hear that Nigeria’s economy is likely to shoot up by 40 percent in the second quarter this year. Yep. Forty percent. Four – O.
An investigation by Reuters Lagos correspondent Chijioke Ohuocha came up with this staggering figure — which if borne out will lift Nigeria close to continental rival South Africa and raise it about 10 places on the IMF’s global list to around 3oth.
This mighty rise, however, is not actually because Nigeria has had a sudden spurt of growth. You can read Chijioke’s exclusive story here, but the gist is that the country is changing the base year for its GDP calculation to 2009 from its current 1990. One big reason is that data is better; another that it is more modern, taking in things like mobile phones and the internet, for example. It is the latter, and things like it, that have built up growth over thr years.
Nigeria’s current annual growth is around 7 percent, which puts it on track to overtake slower growing South Africa as Africa’s Number 1 economy. That, in itself, should make the country more of a target for investment over the longer term. It is currently considered “frontier”, which is a small pool when it comes to investment flows.
For now, though, it is as Chijioke writes: “The makeover may give the country financial bragging rights, but will change little for the millions trapped in poverty.”
The percentage of Nigerians living in absolute poverty, unable to afford only the bare essentials of food, shelter and clothing,- has risen to around 60 percent even as growth — rebased or not — has risen.
from Global Investing:
EM growth is passport out of West’s mess but has a price, says “Mr BRIC”
Anyone worried about Greece and the potential impact of the euro debt crisis on the world economy should have a chat with Jim O'Neill. O'Neill, the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management ten years ago coined the BRIC acronym to describe the four biggest emerging economies and perhaps understandably, he is not too perturbed by the outcome of the Greek crisis. Speaking at a recent conference, the man who is often called Mr BRIC, pointed out that China's economy is growing by $1 trillion a year and that means it is adding the equivalent of a Greece every 4 months. And what if the market turns its guns on Italy, a far larger economy than Greece? Italy's economy was surpassed in size last year by Brazil, another of the BRICs, O'Neill counters, adding:
"How Italy plays out will be important but people should not exaggerate its global importance. In the next 12 months the four BRICs will create the equivalent of another Italy."
Emerging economies are cooling now after years of turbo-charged growth. But according to O'Neill, even then they are growing enough to allow the global economy to expand at 4-4.5 percent, a faster clip than much of the past 30 years. Trade data for last year will soon show that Germany for the first time exported more goods to the four BRICs than to neighbouring France, he said.
"Post-crisis, these countries will be our passport out of this mess."
But there has to be a payoff for this kind of increased financial clout, he warns. Developing countries are increasingly disgruntled about the the richer world's strangehold on global policies via the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and most have responded coolly to the call for additional funds for the IMF which is fighting to stem the euro zone malaise. An attempt last year to install a representative of the developing world at the helm of the IMF for the first time ever fell apart, with Europe retaining the position. But emerging countries could make a bid for the World Bank chief's position this year, a position traditionally held by a U.S. citizen. O'Neill said the West had to bow to the new reality:
"You can't have it both ways...This game of 'You have the IMF and I have the World Bank' has to stop or these institutions are going to lose their relevance."
He is also dismissive of fears China is headed for a so-called hard landing, a sharp slowdown of growth, potentially leading to unemployment, a property crash and social unrest in the world's No. 2 economy. "A lot of people (in the West) want China to have a hard landing, " he said. "And that's because it isnt us."
from Global Investing:
Hungary’s Orban and his central banker
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent central banker?" Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban may not have voiced this sentiment but since he took power last year he is likely to have thought it more than once. Increasingly, the spat between Orban's government and central bank governor Andras Simor brings to memory the quarrel England's Henry II had with his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over the rights and privileges of the Church almost 900 years ago. Simor stands accused of undermining economic growth by holding interest rates too high and resisting government demands for monetary stimulus. The government's efforts to sideline Simor are viewed as infringing on the central bank's independence.
So far, attacks on Simor have ranged from alleging he has undisclosed overseas income to stripping him of his power to appoint some central bank board members. But the government's latest plan could be the last straw -- proposed legislation that would effectively demote Simor or at least seriously dilute his influence. Simor says the government is trying to engineer a total takeover at the central bank. "The new law brings the final elimination of the central bank's independence dangerously close," he said last week. The move is ill-timed however, coming exactly at a time when Hungary is trying to persuade the IMF and the European Union to give it billions of euros in aid. The lenders have expressed concern about the law and declined to proceed with the loan talks. But the government says it will not bow to external pressure and plans to put the law to vote on Friday. That has sparked general indignation - Societe Generale analyst Benoit Anne calls the spat extremely damaging to investor confidence in Hungary. "I just hope the IMF will not let this go," he writes.
Central banks and governments often fail to see eye to eye. But in Hungary, the government's attacks on Simor, a respected figure in central banking and investment circles, is hastening the downfall of the already fragile economy. For one, if IMF funds fail to come through, Hungary will need to find 4.7 billion euros next year just to repay maturing hard currency debt. That could be tough at a time when lots of borrowers -- developed and emerging -- will be competing for scarce funds. Central European governments alone will be looking to raise 16 billion euros on bond markets, data from ING shows. So Orban will have to tone down his rhetoric if he is to avoid plunging his country into financial disaster.
But this week the tussle has intensified as the central bank has shrugged off Orban's call for more "growth-friendly policies" and raised interest rates by half a point. The rate rise, the second in as many months, brings interest rates to 7 percent, sparking rage in the ruling party. But the central bank, quite logically, argues higher rates are necessary to protect Hungary's currency, the forint, from further weakness. And it has signalled it is fully prepared to raise rates again at the next meeting if required.
from Global Investing:
A shoe, a song and the promise of the West
I found myself at Selfridges this week, specifically in what the London retailer says is the world's largest shoe department.
Slightly dazed by cornucopia of women's shoes on slick display, I was roused only when the haze of muzak wafting over the PA system was suddenly dispersed by the jaunty strains of the Chinese New Year ditty 'Gongxi Gongxi'.
A 1946 composition from Shanghai, the song has gone from classic to kitsch, evolving to become the most popular festive song in the Chinese-speaking world. Its ubiquity rests on the many -- for me at least -- teeth-grindingly cloying versions played all over shops and markets in Asia. (Click here for example and don't say I didn't warn you)
I was somewhat surprised by the song's appearance in the British retail icon -- not least because it's still some ways off the Year of the Dragon. But then looking at the shoppers around me it all made sense.
Mainland Chinese travellers spent some £200 million on Bond Street last year. That's a 155 percent surge from 2009, according to an association of luxury retailers in the London thoroughfare.
Never mind that these products are largely assembled back in their home country, Chinese tourists buy their designer bags on Bond Street and elsewhere in Europe to avoid China's luxury sales tax. More importantly, these status-conscious buyers have the assurance that they are not being sold knock-offs -- a risk rampant in a country notorious for its lack of regard for intellectual property.
Those reasons are similar to those that drive the wealthy elite in many emerging economies to London, a city that Goldman Sach's Jim O'Neil has dubbed the "BRIC capital of the world".
from Global Investing:
Moscow is not Cairo. Time to buy shares?
The speed of the backlash building against Russia's paramount leader Vladimir Putin following this week's parliamentary elections has taken investors by surprise and sent the country's shares and rouble down sharply lower.
Comparisons to the Arab Spring may be tempting, given that the demonstrations in Russia are also spearheaded by Internet-savvy youth organising via social networks.
But Russia's economic and demographic profiles suggest quite different outcomes from those in the Middle East and North Africa. The gathering unrest may, in fact, signal a reversal of fortunes for the stock market, down 18 percent this year, argue Renaissance Capital analysts Ivan Tchakarov, Mert Yildiz and Mert Yildiz.
First of all, Russia's youth unemployment rate is relatively low at 14 percent, compared to Syria's 18 and 30 percent in Tunisia.
Secondly, the percentage of young men as part of its rapidly ageing population is low -- those aged 15-29 account for 11 percent in 2009 versus a range of 13-17 percent in its fellow oil-exporting peers in the Middle East. This is particularly significant since the relationship between a country's political stability and its proportion of angry young men has been well elucidated.
And although Russia’s GDP per capita is generally higher than those in the Middle East, its income inequality is more pronounced. Energy exports per capita are also lower in Russia. All this suggests there is room for the Kremlin to ratchet up government spending to cool public anger if it wanted to.
"A strategy of moderately higher government spending on the eve of Russia’s March presidential elections may help assuage current pressures. Russia’s 2012 budget already assumes that spending grows at higher rates than inflation, but we believe additional fiscal disbursement may well occur," the Moscow-headquartered investment bank said.
from Global Investing:
If China catches a cold…
China has defied predictions of a hard economic landing for some time now so it is somewhat unsettling to see investors positioning for a sharp slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.
Over the last 10 years, the world has become accustomed to Chinese annual GDP growth of above 9 percent. A seemingly insatiable demand for commodities from soya beans to iron ore has catapulted the Asian giant to near the top of the global trade table. China is the biggest trading partner for countries on nearly every continent, from Angola to Australia.
But many are now fretting that an unhappy coincidence between stuttering global demand and domestic strains in the property and banking sectors could knock Chinese growth to below 7 percent (the level commonly identified as a 'hard landing'), with grave implications for the rest of the world.
"It used to be the case that if the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. But with the US already confined to the emergency room since 2008 thequestion is what happens if China catches a cold," says Citi in a recent report.
Many are now preparing for the first sneeze.
Commodity exporters are expected to bear the brunt of a sharp Chinese slowdown. Investors have pared back exposure to Brazil, Russia, Chile and South Africa, citing fears over China.
On the flipside, Turkey, Mexico, Israel and India have been identified as less vulnerable.
Bernanke and bank rules: lessons sort of learned
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday gave a speech on the lessons about sustained growth that can be gleaned from the experience of emerging markets. Bernanke said not all of the “Washington consensus” policies pushed by multilateral lenders in the 1990s had proven fruitful. In particular, he said the Asian financial crisis showed the risks of opening up financial markets to foreign capital flows until a country has implemented measures to strengthen banks and regulation.
Yet Bernanke missed an opportunity to link his speech back to the recent experience of the United States. For while his message was tailored for the developing world, he may as well have been describing the U.S. banking sector in the run-up to the 2008-2009 financial crisis:
Dismantling controls on the domestic financial industry has proven counterproductive when important complementary factors — such as effective bank supervision … were absent.
from Global Investing:
Emerging consumers’ pain to spell gains for stocks in staples
Food and electricity bills are high. The cost of filling up at the petrol station isn't coming down much either. The U.S. economy is in trouble and suddenly the job isn't as secure as it seemed. Maybe that designer handbag and new car aren't such good ideas after all.
That's the kind of decision millions of middle class consumers in developing countries are facing these days. That's bad news for purveyors of everything from jeans to iphones who have enjoyed double-digit profits thanks to booming sales in emerging markets.
Brazil is the best example of how emerging market consumers are tightening their belts. Thanks to their spending splurge earlier this decade, Brazilian consumers on average see a quarter of their income disappear these days on debt repayments. People's credit card bills can carry interest rates of up to 45 percent. The central bank is so worried about the growth outlook it stunned markets with a cut in interest rates this week even though inflation is running well above target
All that bodes ill for shares in companies selling so-called consumer discretionaries in developing countries -- non-essential items such as autos and high-end cosmetics.
But someone's loss is someone's gain. Shares in companies selling consumer staples --food, beverages, prescription meds and tobacco -- are starting to pick up. In short, everything that outperforms during economic downturns. MSCI's index of emerging market staples is flat on the year, doing only slighly better than consumer discretionaries. But guess what? In August, when everything was selling off staples did ok. They fell 2.4 percent, much better than MSCI's discretionaries index which lost 8 percent.
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch's monthly survey shows fund managers went overweight consumer staples in August for the first time this year. Back in January when investors were optimistic about the U.S. economic outlook, almost 60 percent of fund managers were underweight staples. They still like discretionaries but cut that position pretty sharply last month.
What of Brazil? Carlos de Leon, a fund manager at RCM still sees opportunities there, especially as minimum wages will rise by an above-inflation 12 percent next year. But unsurprisingly, his picks are consumer staples and defensives including toll road operators, fuel distributors and utilities.
The thin line between love and hate
The opinion on Turkey’s unorthodox monetary policy mix is turning as rapidly as global growth forecasts are being revised down.
Earlier this month, its central bank was the object of much finger-wagging after it defied market fears over an overheating economy by cutting its policy rate. It defended the move, arguing that weaker global demand posed a greater risk than inflationary pressures.
Investors were not persuaded. When I told one analyst about the Turkish rate move, he practically sputtered down the phone: “You’re not kidding?!”
The lira sold off, dropping to 2-1/2 year lows against the dollar.
But the central bank could yet be vindicated. With fears intensifying over weakening global demand, its decision to cut rates looks increasingly prescient. As my colleague Sujata Rao has pointed out, other emerging-market central banks have followed the Turks.
Witness Societe Generale’s head of emerging markets strategy Benoit Anne‘s mea cupla in a note issued just two weeks after Turkey’s controversial rate decision:
“I guess I need to apologize to the Central Bank of Turkey which on many occasions had been the object of my sarcasm over the past few months: the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey is actually at the forefront of policy-making in the emerging-markets universe. And I bet some other central banks will follow suit with rate cuts in the pipeline.”
Don’t fight the Turkish central bank
Stop fighting the Turkish central bank. Since a shock interest rate cut earlier this month, the front end of Turkey’s bond yield curve has collapsed over 80 basis points, with two-year yields hitting seven-month lows of 7.84 percent. The curve is flattening as the 10-year sector starts feeling the heat as well. Whether it reflects investors’ faith in the central bank’s ability to safeguard economic growth while bringing down a record wide current account gap is another matter altogether. Bond investors have in fact been uneasy with the central bank’s experiments, fearing that overly loose monetary policy will cause an inflation shock down the road. But with more rate cuts clearly on the cards, investors are finding that Turkish rates, especially at the front end, are too attractive to miss. Especially as the central bank is shoring up the lira with daily dollar sales.
“Its difficult to go against the central bank. It’s been six months of mixed policy and finally international investors are getting the message,” says Luis Costa, head of CEEMEA currency and debt strategy at Citi. “Logically you should be paying long-end rates but it’s a challenging environment for that as the central bank bank is forcing the curve to be extremely flat.” Markets are now pricing in another interest rate cut next week. How will markets react? The difference from the surprise rate cut on Aug. 3 is that other emerging central banks, fearful of a growth collapse, also now appear to be gearing up for policy easing. A dimming euro zone outlook means a poor outlook for exports from Turkey and other emerging markets. “There’s some realisation that the Turkish central bank may not be all that wrong,” says Zsolt Papp, who helps manage Swiss private bank UBP‘s emerging debt portfolio.
Investors have in fact realised Turkey is not overly concerned about inflation and that allows it more room to ease policy, Papp says, adding the moves in the Turkish curve indicate that is being priced in. Citi’s Costa agrees. “Policy is now clearly being driven by growth and that’s a massive game changer.”
