MacroScope

 All data released last week point to a far better first quarter growth in Canada than previously expected, prompting economists to revise up their predictions.

In a Reuters poll conducted early last month, forecasters predicted that Canada’s economy expanded by just 1.6 percent on an annualised basis in the first three months of this year.

But that consensus could prove to be too low, with many now expecting growth to be close to 2 percent or even higher, likely a welcome sign for Stephen Poloz who was named Bank of Canada’s new governor last Thursday and will replace Mark Carney on June 3.

Last Tuesday brought the first bit of good news, with the monthly gross domestic product (GDP) by industry growing at a faster pace than forecast in February, lifted by strength in potash mining, oil and gas and manufacturing.

Another pleasant surprise came on Thursday when the March report card on trade showed surging exports propelled the country to its first trade surplus in a year.

After bad economic news from Germany, China and the United States over the past few weeks, here are two more. Brazil and India, two of the world’s largest emerging economies, are increasingly vulnerable to another crisis or to the eventual end of the ultra-loose monetary policies in developed economies after five years of a severe global slowdown.

Weak demand for Brazil’s exports and the voracious appetite of local consumers for imported goods widened the country’s current account deficit to 2.93 percent of GDP in the 12 months through March, the widest gap in nearly eleven years. In dollar terms, that amounts to $67 billion.

To help fund this gap, Brazil could at first loosen the currency controls adopted in the past few years and let more dollars in. But if the dollar flows change too swiftly, Brazil would find itself with three other options: curb spending by growing less, allow a decline in the foreign exchange rate at the risk of fueling inflation, or burn part of its international reserves – which are large, at $377 billion, but not infinite.

An exercise in divination using the entrails of last week’s U.S. international trade report shows signs of a move with larger implications than just the gaping deficit that caught analysts wrong-footed: the possibility of a persistent burden on the American economy caused by Japanese and German imports, like in the 80s.

The U.S. trade deficit widened 16 percent in November to $48.7 billion, the Commerce Department said on Friday, above the $41.3 billion expected. The negative surprise prompted economists to cut hastily their U.S. gross domestic product estimates for the last quarter to a negligible rate. The stock market took a hit.

The disappointment was limited, however, as analysts attributed the bulky import bill behind the deficit increase to a resumption of merchandise flows into the U.S. after Hurricane Sandy paralyzed port activity in the East Coast the previous month. Some economists still on yuletide mode are, apparently, missing the big picture.

U.S. exports posted their biggest drop in nearly four years in October, pushing the U.S. trade deficit higher despite a decline in imports to their lowest level in 1-1/2 years.

The data reveal that U.S. exports of goods and services have now decelerated to a year-on-year growth rate of just 1 percent compared with 2.8 percent in the third quarter of 2012 and 11.5 percent last year at this time, writes Deutsche Bank Securities chief U.S. economist Joseph LaVorgna in a research note.

We are concerned by this export trend, not only in October, but over the past several months, because exports have contributed an outsized share to economic growth in the current cycle. If exports fade away as an economic driver in the near-to-medium term, other domestic engines will need to accelerate in order to pick up the economic slack and maintain growth near 2.0-2.5 percent. We think this is possible if fiscal cliff concerns are adequately addressed. The domestic offset will come from continued recovery in the housing sector, as well as pent-up demand from households and businesses.

By Wei Gu and Edward Hadas
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

China will have to get used to monthly trade deficits. Special factors contributed to the $4.2 billion negative number for the first two months of 2012, but something fundamental is changing. A smaller portion of China’s imports are of goods which will be processed for export, and a higher portion is going straight into domestic consumption.

A 13 percent volume increase in soybean imports may be partly due to precautionary purchase after drought losses in South America. And the 50 percent year-on-year increase in copper imports is suspicious. Copper can be used a wheeze to circumvent tight monetary policy. Importers get a letter of credit for commodity imports, sell the commodity quickly and keep the credit until maturity.

It used to be the low-end stuff like shoes, clothes and furniture that displaced American manufacturing, then cars and consumer electronics.  A new report by Alan Tonelson, a researcher at the U.S. Business and Industry Council which represents 1,500 American companies, now shows that high-end U.S. industry is facing ever tougher foreign competition in its own backyard.

Tonelson has crunched the numbers since 1997 on high-value, advanced manufacturing – the crown jewel of American industry that is capital intensive and depends on technological superiority such as turbines, pharmaceuticals and electrical engineering. He finds that imported products had captured 38 percent of the $1.63 trillion U.S. market for advanced manufactured products by 2010, up from 24.5 percent when the government started collected the data in 1997.  Only six U.S.-based advanced manufacturers have gained market share in the United States in the 13-year period.  Sectors that are more than 50 percent dominated by foreign producers have risen from eight in 1997 to 32 by 2010, he said.

The high-value core of America’s domestic manufacturing sector is suffering chronic and significant weaknesses. They strongly indicate that advanced U.S.-based manufacturing industries as a whole are failing a basic test of competitiveness – thriving in a market that is not only the world’s largest single market for such goods, but the market that they should know far better than their overseas counterparts.

The programme may strike a different  note -- this year's Davos is apparently all about Shared Norms for the New Reality -- but much of the discussion at the 41st World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos this month will have a distinctly familiar ring to it.

Last January, the five-day talkfest in the Swiss Alps was dominated by Greece's near-death experience at the hands of the bond market and recriminations over the role of bankers in the financial crisis, as well as worries about China's rapid economic ascent and a lot of calls for a new trade deal.

Fast forward 12 months and not much has changed.

Ireland has joined Greece in the euro zone's intensive care unit and Portugal and  Spain are getting round-the-clock monitoring. The annual round of bankers' bonuses is once again stirring up trouble. China looms larger than ever on the global stage, after overtaking Japan in 2010 to become the world's second-biggest economy. And trade ministers who signally failed to make headway last year say they really must get down to business when they meet on the sidelines of Davos this time round.

Jim O'Neill, the new Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman who is famous for coining the term BRICs for the world's new emerging economic giants, reckons he knows why Germany might not be rushing to bail out all the euro zone debt that is under pressure. Europe is not as important to Berlin as it was.

Speaking at the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit being held in London and New York, O'Neill pointed out that in the not very distant future Germany will have more trade with China than it does with France.

"It's a different global environment. That's why maybe Germany (ties)  itself to a rules-based game with the rest of Europe because economically it doesn't mean so much to them now. What goes on in China is more important than what goes on in France and that's puts a different economic (spin) on the situation for the Germans."

Some eye-catching numbers from Standard Bank out today on the influence of BRICs countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — on Africa.

First off, the bank says the global recession and its recovery have been nourishing these so-called South-South ties. But it is all now ready to take off. The bank estimates:

– By 2015, BRIC-Africa trade will have incresed threefold, to $530 billion from $150 billion this year.

A guide at the “Japanese Experience” exhibition talks to Miim, the Karaoke pal robot, on the sidelines of the APEC meetings in Yokohama, Japan on Nov. 10. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

    Miim is one of the more popular delegates at the APEC meetings in Yokohama Japan. She sings. She dances. She tosses her shoulder length hair. She may not be able to spout an alphabet soup of APEC acronyms like the other Asia-Pacific delegates. But she’s still pretty lively. For a robot.

    This week’s meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have been earnest and most comprehensive . Foreign and trade ministers issued a 20-page statement about all the things they talked about — a giant free trade zone, protectionism, the Doha round, easing restrictions on businesses, simplifying customs procedures, promoting green industries, cooperating on health and security, you name it. They also have been, and pardon my French here, excruciatingly dull. So far, the meetings and their stupefying statements have been a testimonial to Japan’s skill at stating the ambiguous. Call it the opaque meetings. Journalists from around the Pacific rim have been desperately trying to find news as the 21 APEC leaders gather for their annual pow-wow this weekend.