Aurelia Butler

Chinese shipments to Russia, which has been hit by Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, rose 26.5% from a year earlier in dollar terms, up from a 22.2% gain in July, Reuters calculations based on Chinese customs data on Wednesday showed.Imports from Russia jumped 59.3% versus a 49.3% increase in July.Russia is a major source of oil, gas, coal and agricultural products for China.Russia was China’s top oil supplier for a third month in July, data from Chinese customs showed on Aug. 20. The agency has not published the ranking for August yet.Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an economic forum in Vladivostok on Wednesday that Chinese demand for Russian energy was rising.Russia’s Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement to start switching payments for gas supplies to China to yuan and roubles instead of dollars.Chinese legislator Li Zhanshu, ranked No.3 in the Communist Party, will attend the Vladivostok forum, the most senior Chinese official to visit Russia since the Ukraine war began and underlining the close ties between the countries.In the first eight months of this year, bilateral trade between China and Russia jumped 31.4% to $117.2 billion. More

GOVERNOR ANDREW BAILEY ON ENERGY SUPPORT PLAN”It’s not for us to comment on what fiscal policy will be and we will wait and see what it is…but I do very much welcome the fact that there will be, as I understand it, announcements this week because I think that will help to, in a sense, frame policy and that’s important””It’s important that there is a clear way forward on policy… That will be important for markets to understand what is going to happen.”GOVERNOR ANDREW BAILEY ON BOE MANDATE”The inflation target … has proved to be very successful. In 25 years since this regime came into existence … inflation has averaged pretty much exactly on target.”This is by far the biggest shock we are facing during the life of that, but it is not does not suggest that the regime has failed. What it suggests is that the regime now has to do its work and respond to a much bigger shock and we are confident that it will do so.”CHIEF ECONOMIST HUW PILL ON INFLATION AND GOVERNMENT ENERGY PLANS “One of the things that does seem to be under consideration … is a change to the relationship between gas prices and retail gas prices in a direction that will lower headline inflation, relative to what we were forecasting … where that relationship was based on the mechanics of the Ofgem price gap.”So I think that in the short term would tend to weigh on inflation. Against that, some of the implications of supporting household incomes – particularly household incomes towards the less well off households – support demand in the economy, and other things equal, would probably lead to slightly stronger inflation. Net-net on the implications for headline inflation in the short term, I would expect that to see a decline.””Will fiscal policies generate inflation? We are here to ensure that they don’t generate inflation. So fiscal policies will have their own dynamics as will other shocks to the economy, and we as the central bank, our role is, our mandate is, our remit is to return inflation to the target and I think that’s what we’re trying to do, that is what we are doing, that is that is what we will do.”CHIEF ECONOMIST HUW PILL ON MONETARY POLICY”The more important question from a monetary policy point of view is what are the implications of these changes and the other fiscal changes that you mentioned, which I don’t have good insight into, but have also been flagged. I mean, what are the implications of those for inflation at the what we typically label, monetary policy relevant horizon, which is the horizon at which the lags in monetary policy unwind, the decisions we make today, how they affect inflation in the future? And I think there, not only does it depend on the macroeconomic effects of the various fiscal changes … I think there’s just too much uncertainty to have a strong view right now, given the lack of details.”MPC MEMBER TENREYRO ON RISK OF OVERSHOOTING”I judged that the more gradual pace of tightening will allow us to reduce those risks, because we will see the effects of the data and we can always stop.”So it’s about going slowly when there is a lot of uncertainty. And that was my judgement.””Given the uncertainty, my strategy will be to consider further tightening until we see firmer evidence.” More

China’s exports significantly missed expectations in August, with the country’s trade surplus shrinking as overseas demand flattened and a new wave of Covid-19 restrictions at home disrupted production and logistics.Exports rose 7.1 per cent last month compared with the same period a year earlier, well below consensus expectations of a 13 per cent increase and down from 18 per cent growth in July, official customs data showed on Wednesday. The fall represented the first slowdown since April. The country’s trade balance narrowed to a $79.4bn surplus, compared with market expectations of $92.7bn, after reaching a record high of $101.3bn in July.Trade had been a rare bright spot for the Chinese economy, which has been hammered by a liquidity crisis in the property sector and widespread lockdowns as part of President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid strategy. Analysts said this month’s slowdown represented the beginning of the end of the export boom that had provided a lifeline to the world’s second-largest economy after the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.“Export softness arrived earlier than expected, as recent shipping data suggests that demand from the US and EU has already slowed, as shipping prices have been falling significantly,” said Zhou Hao, chief economist at Guotai Junan International, a Hong Kong-based brokerage.The downbeat data follows a fall in factory output in Europe and elsewhere in Asia, as high inflation and surging energy prices weigh on consumer demand and most equity markets in the region falling on Wednesday.Production in the world’s second-largest economy was dented by a new round of city lockdowns in August, which has hurt manufacturing and export hubs such as Yiwu in southeastern Zhejiang province.The country has also had to deal with droughts and heatwaves, causing power shortages that forced several provinces and cities to suspend or restrict electricity supplies to factories.Imports also missed estimates, rising just 0.3 per cent year on year in August, below expectations for 1.1 per cent growth.

“Pricing effects will continue to cloud the picture for trade performance — in real terms, China’s import growth has turned negative since late in the first quarter, suggesting that the demand side is still facing headwinds,” Zhou added.Analysts warned that Chinese exports — which boomed at the onset of the pandemic as demand for many electronic goods surged — may soften further as much of the world begins to treat the virus as endemic and the prospect of a global recession looms.“Now that most economies have reopened, consumption patterns are shifting back from durable goods to services,” analysts at research group Capital Economics wrote in a note. “Going forward, high inflation and tighter financial conditions elsewhere will also be an increasing drag on foreign demand for Chinese goods.”

Video: China’s unseen war for strategic influence More

On the European Central Bank’s rate-setting governing council sit six executive board members and the 19 governors of the eurozone’s national central banks. I would wager that most of them have read George Orwell’s allegorical fable Animal Farm and its famous line: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”At the risk of sounding impertinent, so it is with the ECB. Isabel Schnabel, a board member from Germany, is one of the farm’s more influential voices. Yannis Stournaras, Greece’s governor, though one of the council’s most experienced members, having held office since 2014, has less sway.So when Schnabel spoke out last month at a central bankers’ get-together in Jackson Hole in favour of forceful action against inflation, markets sat up and listened. They noted similar comments by François Villeroy de Galhau, the powerful French governor. But they attached less weight to a more dovish speech made by Stournaras a few days later at the European Forum Alpbach.For this reason, the widespread market expectation is that the ECB will raise its main policy rate on Thursday by 0.75 percentage points. That would equal the highest increase in the bank’s 24-year life and would follow a fairly aggressive 0.5 percentage point hike in July.Does Stournaras advocate a more cautious approach purely because that would be in Greece’s national interest? I’m sure he would say no. Like all ECB council members, he is required to look at the eurozone’s economic outlook as a whole.

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Yet financing conditions are starting to vary across the region, and Greece is among those affected. The 10-year Greek government bond yield has risen since late August above 4 per cent, compared with about 1.5 per cent for benchmark German bonds. The Italian yield is close to 4 per cent.Neither Greece nor Italy is experiencing funding difficulties. We are far from the moment, if it ever comes, when the ECB council might consider activating its Transmission Protection Instrument, its new anti-crisis bond-buying tool.Under the TPI, the ECB can potentially buy unlimited quantities of one-year to 10-year debt if it judges that financing conditions are becoming fragmented. From a monetary policy perspective, fragmentation means “a sudden break in the relationship between sovereign yields and fundamentals”, Schnabel told a French university audience in June.Much uncertainty surrounds the legal basis for using TPI as well as the criteria the ECB would apply in deciding whether to act. At a minimum, a country would be eligible for TPI only if it complies with EU fiscal rules, has no severe macroeconomic imbalances and meets conditions attached to the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund.Yet disruptive market conditions can arise from various sources. One is a perception that aggressive ECB interest rate rises will damage economic growth prospects in countries with extremely high levels of public debt, such as Greece and Italy.A second could be a political rupture, such as the expected victory in Italy’s September 25 elections for a rightwing bloc that is signalling it may try to rewrite the terms of access to the EU recovery fund. This would represent a break with the policies of Mario Draghi’s national unity government, which collapsed in July.A third source of possible disruption is that some investors see high-risk, high-return opportunities in taking positions that gain from widening yield spreads between different euro area government bonds. In an incomplete currency union such as the eurozone, which still lacks a full fiscal, banking and capital markets union, these opportunities exist just as they did when Greece and other countries fell into trouble more than a decade ago.At the ECB, the prevalent view seems to be that, for the moment, inflation trumps other concerns. The eurozone’s headline annual rate rose to 9.1 per cent last month, and core inflation hit 4.3 per cent. With central bankers worldwide under fire for misjudging inflation risks, the bank may feel a need to defend its reputation with vigorous action.Yet Stournaras made a fair point when he said there was little evidence so far that rising inflation was spurring a wage-price spiral. For the second quarter, the growth of negotiated wage settlements came in at only 2.1 per cent.In that light, it may be wise for the ECB, if it raises rates by 0.75 percentage points, to make clear this is an unusual front-loading step aimed at lowering the level at which it finally stops increasing rates, presumably next [email protected] More

Argentina, a natural resource powerhouse, has pledged to help ease global food and energy shortages by boosting oil and gas production and incentivising exports of grain from the country, according to economy minister Sergio Massa.Speaking on the first day of a visit to the US, during which major new lithium mining and energy investments are expected, Massa told the Financial Times that he was also committed to stabilising the South American nation’s troubled finances and rebuilding hard currency reserves.“We are going to contribute to the global food and fuel security agenda by increasing our production of energy and proteins,” Massa said. During a meeting on Tuesday at the US state department, an Argentine official said the minister had stressed that his nation could help “feed and fuel the world”.The US has been searching the world for friendly nations that can increase food and fuel production to help alleviate shortages created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent western sanctions on Moscow. As a democratic ally enjoying abundant natural resources and good relations with Washington, Argentina is well placed to help.Exchange controls and high taxes imposed previously by the ruling Peronist coalition had deterred foreign investment but Massa, a seasoned politician appointed last month to head a “super ministry” combining the economy, manufacturing and agriculture, is moving quickly to remove some of the hurdles. Measures to incentivise soy farmers and energy companies to boost production have been announced and incentives for mining are promised soon.“As well as a healthy relationship with multilateral organisations, we want to move to a higher level of investment of US companies in the real economy,” Massa said. “We are going to promote a rule which grows and rewards bigger investment in mining.”Argentina is a major producer of lithium, a key metal for electric batteries, and officials said a significant new investment in this area by an international mining company would be announced this week.In a signal of improved relations with international organisations, the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) agreed on Tuesday to boost its loans to Argentina to a total of $5bn for 2022 and 2023 combined, including $3.7bn in new funds. Argentina is the world’s biggest exporter of soyabean meal and oil and the second-biggest exporter of corn, but farmers have been holding back from selling their crops because of exchange controls that give them an artificially low rate. Before leaving for Washington, Massa announced a temporary boost to the exchange rate used for soya exports. It forms part of a package that also includes incentives for soy farmers to invest and increase production. The Rosario Board of Trade, an agricultural market, predicted on Monday that Argentina would enjoy bumper soy and corn harvests this season and will export a record $42.3bn of grains and grain products in 2022-23, up $1.3bn on the previous year.

Massa hopes that his special soy export exchange rate, running until the end of the month, will bring in an extra $5bn in exports and allow him to resist pressure for a big devaluation. The black market exchange rate, which had soared as high as 333 pesos per dollar on July 21, has fallen back as devaluation fears eased. It was trading on Tuesday at around 268 pesos — still far above the officially controlled level of 144 pesos.The leader of a splinter group within the ruling Peronist coalition and a possible presidential candidate next year, Massa faces serious economic challenges. Inflation is heading for 90 per cent this year, the government is struggling to fund itself, and net international reserves are precariously low.“The pillars of the stabilisation programme are fiscal discipline, reserve accumulation and inclusive development,” Massa said.Massa believes his political power base gives him an advantage over Martin Guzmán, an economist and technocrat who quit as economy minister on July 2 after struggling to implement unpopular austerity measures. His replacement, Silvina Batakis, lasted barely a month before she was fired during an official trip to Washington.It is unclear whether Massa will be able to overcome deep divisions on economic policy within the Peronist coalition. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the powerful vice-president who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on September 1, leads an influential faction strongly resisting spending cuts ahead of elections next year. More

UK savers have fled funds investing in British business, pulling £6.6bn from these assets so far this year, making 2022 already the biggest year of outflows in a decade. The rout for funds with UK equities strategies in the first part of this year has outstripped the £4.8bn withdrawn in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum, according to data from the Investment Association (IA), a trade body. UK-focused funds have recorded net outflows every year since the Brexit vote. Withdrawals accelerated in July, the most recent month covered by the IA’s data, marking 12 consecutive months of net outflows. The pace of selling appears to have picked up in August, according to separate data from funds provider Calastone, which tracks both retail and professional investors. It said the five worst months for UK funds since at least 2015 all took place in 2022.The lack of faith in British stocks from UK retail investors and their advisers underscores the economic challenges facing Liz Truss as she took over as UK prime minister this week. “The government must recognise that the UK is sliding down the ranks of the largest economies in the world, and to reverse this decline it must introduce policies that make the UK more attractive for inward investment,” said Alan Custis, head of UK equities at Lazard Asset Management. The pound traded at its weakest level since the mid-1980s as Truss took office, while the yield on the UK government’s ten-year bonds reached 3 per cent for the first time since 2014. Both market moves reflect investors’ fears about the country’s darkening economic outlook. “The UK’s new prime minister faces an in tray of burning issues that need urgent attention. These include a cost of living crisis sparked by inflation at a 40-year high, rocketing energy prices, a raft of strikes and the unresolved difficulties of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union,” analysts at Schroders wrote. Investors have blamed lingering uncertainty over the Brexit process for the haemorrhaging of cash from UK funds since 2016, which totalled £21bn to the end of last year. However, the UK funds sector has also suffered from a broader trend away from home-market bias on the part of retail investors. “UK equity fund outflows have been persistent since the Brexit referendum in 2016. This is also reflective of an adjustment away from a home bias towards more globally diverse equity exposure,” said Miranda Seath, director of market insight at the IA. “Rising and persistent inflation and a weakening pound have placed an increasing strain on the domestic economy, but this is not just a UK phenomenon.”A relatively better performance by UK stocks this year compared with global markets has not reversed retail investors’ flight from British strategies. The MSCI UK Index has fallen 10 per cent in the year to the end of last month, compared with a 17 per cent drop for the MSCI World. However, analysts note the fortunes of UK-listed companies are not always tied to the British economy.“It is important to remember when the economic headlines are grim that the UK equity market is highly international in nature, with around two-thirds of the earnings of UK listed companies made outside the UK,” said Jason Hollands, managing director at UK wealth manager Evelyn Partners (formerly Tilney, Smith & Williamson). “When it comes to the largest multinational companies, economic exposure to the US and emerging markets are more of an influence than the domestic UK economy. Sensitivity to the domestic economy is . . . greater when it comes to small and medium sized companies,” he added.The sell-off in global markets so far this year has been mirrored by steep withdrawals from investment funds, as the war in Ukraine and tightening central bank policy spooked UK savers. The IA reported June was the second-worst month on record for fund sales, with total net outflows of £4.5bn. Total outflows slowed to just £129mn in July, as markets staged a brief rebound. More

Past presidential elections in Brazil have been marked by wild swings in asset prices. Brazilians are once again gearing up to cast their ballots. But acrimonious exchanges aside, the campaign has thus far stood out for its relative lack of market volatility.With four weeks to go to the first-round ballot, leftist ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains the frontrunner. But his lead is narrowing. He is polling at 43 per cent while right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro is at 35 per cent, according to a recent survey.The one-month volatility in the real, a gauge of how much money investors are willing to pay to insure against the currency’s swings over the next 30 days, stands at 16.6. That is well below the level of almost 30 reached at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.Past elections featured candidates with starkly different economic and fiscal agendas. There is less to differentiate Lula from Bolsonaro economically. Neither is seen as particularly committed to fiscal discipline. Lula presided over a commodity super cycle that lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty during his two terms as president from 2002 to 2010. He has been calling for more public spending to fight hunger and inequality. Bolsonaro has already turned on the spending spigot, boosting welfare payments and fuel subsidies. While the Brazilian real has gained 7 per cent against the dollar this year, fear over a ballooning public deficit could weigh on the currency. Whoever wins will have to deal with a potential global recession, a stagnating economy, high inflation and rising interest rates. Brazil is set to grow between 1 and 2 per cent this year. The budget deficit is expected to widen to 7.5 per cent GDP, compared with 4.2 per cent in 2021. The upshot is Brazil is a haven from lofty valuations. The Ibovespa stock index is trading at about seven times forward earnings, way below the 10-year average of 11 times. It reached six times earlier this month, the lowest since November 2008. This makes it a good entry point for bargain hunters. More