Asia Chart Pack Omicron fears stall plans to reopen borders Amid all the uncertainty caused by the arrival of Omicron, one thing we can say with some conviction is that the new variant is further bad news for the region’s beleaguered tourism industry. Up until... 29th November 2021 · 15 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Diverging outlook for monetary policy While the RBNZ has lifted interest rates by 50bp and signalled that as much as 200bp of tightening is still to come, the RBA’s central scenario remains that interest rates won’t be raised until 2024... 29th November 2021 · 11 mins read
Asia Chart Pack South East Asia bouncing back The near-term outlook for South East Asia has improved dramatically over the past month or so. Daily cases of COVID-19 have collapsed and are now less than one-third of the level they were at in... 27th October 2021 · 15 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Early signs of second-round effects from soaring prices The RBA expects headline inflation to drop back from 3.8% in Q2 to 1.5% by mid-2022. By contrast, we now only expect it to fall to 2.5% over this period, reflecting the pass-through from soaring coal... 30th September 2021 · 11 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Asian central banks in little rush to raise rates Over the past month or so, the central banks of Korea, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all raised interest rates, but we don’t think other countries will be in any rush to follow suit. There is certainly... 29th September 2021 · 15 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Exports won’t come to the rescue in H2 Q2 GDP data released over the past month or so did not show a repeat of the across-the-board rises in exports seen in previous quarters, but the external sector still proved an important prop to GDP... 31st August 2021 · 13 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Delta not clipping the wings of RBNZ hawks yet New Zealand has entered a draconian lockdown and new infections continue to rise. The lockdown prompted the RBNZ to refrain from hiking interest rates at its August meeting and financial markets were... 26th August 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Vaccination threshold may be hit in four months With new virus cases hitting fresh highs this week, Sydney’s lockdown has been extended until end-August and looks set to last for months given the high transmissibility of the Delta variant... 30th July 2021 · 11 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Singapore: moving beyond zero-COVID In a bold move that will be closely watched across the region, Singapore is set to drop its implicit target of pursuing zero local COVID-19 cases, with restrictions set to be eased gradually from... 28th July 2021 · 14 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Virus disruption to continue The virus situation in Emerging Asia has improved compared with a month ago. Although cases are rising sharply in Indonesia, daily numbers have come down in Taiwan, Singapore, India and Malaysia, and... 30th June 2021 · 14 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Vaccine campaigns running into supply constraints With the more contagious delta variant spreading in Australia, half of the population is now in lockdown. This highlights the Achilles heel of both countries’ virus management: their slow vaccine... 30th June 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Fiscal policy to remain loose for longer Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg noted in October that the Government would not pursue budget repair until the unemployment rated was comfortably below 6%. However, the unemployment rate fell much... 31st May 2021 · 10 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Locking down The economic outlook for much of Emerging Asia has deteriorated in recent weeks in response to a sudden jump in COVID-19 infections. Daily cases are surging in Thailand and Malaysia, and while the... 26th May 2021 · 14 mins read