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As Inflation Continues To Fall Back, Is The Indian Economy About To Take Off Again?
Indian inflation fell back again in the last week of October, as energy and commodity prices continued to fall, and the impact of the global financial turmoil and credit crunch ricocheted its way across one country after another. The IMF last week forecast annual growth for India of 6.3% in 2008 while India’s manufacturing expansion, which continued to weaken, still held out against the global trend, according to the latest JPMorgan global manufacturing PMI.
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Germany’s Recession Becomes Official
The German economy contracted more than most analysts expected in the third quarter, entering what now appears to be its worst recession in at least 12 years as both exports and domestic spending continue to fall. German gross domestic product dropped by a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent from the second quarter, when it fell by a revised 0.4 percent, according to data from the Federal Statistics Office earlier today (Thursday). The Germany economy last had a two quarter contracted of this magnitude back in 1996.
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Inflation Is Dead In Spain, Fasten Up Your Seat Belts For A Sharp Dose Of Deflation
As Barcelona-based property consultants Aguirre Newman publish a report that suggests Spanish property prices may need to fall by at least 23% for the market to return to any kind of normality, we learn today that Spain’s annual inflation dropped almost a full percentage point to 3.6 percent in October, according to data from the Spanish National Statistics Office. This was the lowest level in a year as energy and food costs fell and the real economy slowed dramatically. October’s figure, in line with estimates, was down from 4.5 percent a month before, but this piece of information obscures more of Spain’s current inflation dynamic than it actually reveals.
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German Recession Near Certainty As As New Orders And Industrial Output Continue To Fall
“The worst is still to come for manufacturers,” said Carsten Brzeski an economist at ING Group in Brussels. “The industrialized world is heading for a recession and the German economy is in the middle of the storm.”
Industrial production in Germany declined the most in almost 14 years in September, meaning that a Q3 contraction (and hence a recession) in Europe’s largest economy is now more or less a “done deal”. Output was down a seasonally adjusted 3.6 percent from August, according to data from the German Economy Ministry in Berlin earlier today (Friday). Year on year earlier, production adjusted for working days fell 2.1 percent.
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The Spanish Agony Continues With October Services Hitting A Series Low
Well, just as you think it is getting really bad, you find out it can only get worse. I keep saying I have never seen anything like what is now happening in Spain, and that is undoubtedly true, but in the end you get tired of simply repeating the same point time after time, day in day out, on one occassion after another.
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Manufacturing Falls Off A Cliff And Unemployment Goes Through The Roof In Spain, As Global Manufacturing Plummets
Spain’s manufacturing sector continued to shrink at a record pace in October, with both output and new orders contracting and employers shedding jobs at a near record pace, according to the latest Markit Economics Purchasing Managers Index published yesterday (Monday). The Markit PMI for Spain dropped to 34.6 in October, the lowest reading registered by any eurozone economy since the series began in February 1998 and down from the already rapid 38.3 point contraction in September. On the PMI system any figure below 50.0 shows contraction while figures over 50.0 show growth. As we can see, according to this indicator Spanish manufacturing has now been weakening steadily since the start of 2006.
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German Business Confidence Worsens Significantly In October
German business confidence hit its lowest level in more than five years in October as the deepening financial crisis started to have an effect on the outlook for economic growth. The Munich-based Ifo institute business climate index, which is based on a survey of 7,000 executives, fell to 90.2, its weakest reading since May 2003, and down from 92.9 in September.
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In Search Of The Bottom – Estonia’s Economy Continues To Drift Aimlessly
The Estonian recession continues to deepen, month by month. The most recent evidence comes to us in the form of a decline in both Estonian retail sales and industrial production, which fell in each case for the fifth consecutive month in September, leading us to expect the rate of GDP contraction to accelerate further in Q3.
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After Wearing The Hair Shirt For Over Two Years Hungary Is Now Helped Into The Straight Jacket
Well we now have some of the details of the IMF package for Hungary, and interesting reading it makes. Hungary has in effect secured a 20 billion-euro ($25.5 billion) loan which is going to be sourced by three institutions: the IMF, the EU and the World Bank. The International Monetary Fund is going lend Hungary 12.5 billion euros, the European Union will provide another 6.5 billion euros, and the World Bank is chipping in with a symbolic 1 billion euros. (Really the reasoning behind the tripartite division of the loan may relate more to the pressure which it is thought might fall on IMF funding provision – which stands at about $250 billion at the present time – if more emerging market economies follow the lead of Ukraine, Hungary and Iceland. See this post here for more details and argumentation on this whole problem).
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The Bank Bailouts Are Very Well Intended, But Where Is All The Money Going To Come From?
As every woman who has ever had dealings with a man knows only too well, it is a lot easier for people to make promises than it is for them to keep them. And when Europe’s leaders met in Paris on the 12 October, a lot of fine promises (which were all, surely, very well intentioned) were made. The reality of having to live up to them, however, is turning out, as might only have been expected, to be much more complicated.
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Thomas Grennes
Thoughts From Across the Atlantic
Thomas Grennes is a professor of economics at the North Carolina State University and a former visiting faculty member at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. His research has dealt with various aspects of international economics, including open economy macroeconomics, international finance, and international trade in agricultural products. Recent research topics have included macroeconomic aspects of the Great Moderation, offshore outsourcing, sovereign wealth funds, and the relationship between government debt and economic growth. Earlier work dealt with emerging market issues in the Baltic countries and Russia and trade and macro policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Economic history topics include the Columbian Exchange of plants and animals, the effects on food markets of introducing mechanical refrigeration, and the integration of Tsarist Russia into the world grain market. When he is not involved in economics, he enjoys mountain hiking.
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