Sanele Mjikane 
After a year of stagnating activity, the eurozone economy will continue to struggle to gain traction in the near term given multiple headwinds. But we expect a gradual recovery in 2024 that will gather momentum as consumers regain some of their lost purchasing power and financial conditions ease.
The UK’s house price correction has been mild so far and recent data has indicated the market may be more resilient than we had thought. But we still think the downturn has some way to run.
Despite strong growth in recent years, the California economy is facing multiple challenges, not least to its key entertainment and technology sectors. We forecast that the big four Californian metros will contribute a smaller share of total US growth in the next five years than in the recent pre-pandemic past. But other Californian metros will have more impact, as firms move to smaller towns, whose amenities attract graduates and families, and as other sectors maintain or increase their significance.
The UK’s house price correction has been mild so far and recent data has indicated the market may be more resilient than we had thought. But we still think the downturn has some way to run.
The GCC countries have approved a unified tourism visa system which aims to boost tourism and economic diversification across the region. The new system should come into effect in 2024 or 2025 having been announced at the recent GCC meeting in Muscat.
We do not expect that a future Labour government would have much more impact on regional imbalances in the UK than present or past governments, although their Green Growth Plan might help, as might their emphasis on improving supply chains, especially if linked to encouraging more innovation. Progress may therefore occur, but not quickly.
The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) recent decision to suspend publication of data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has left a big hole in our understanding of the UK labour market. Our proprietary sentiment data suggests the labour market was more resilient than the unadjusted LFS data implied in the summer, though there has been a cooling in labour demand recently.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted to keep Bank Rate at 5.25% at November’s meeting. The lack of significant news on the inflation and pay front made the MPC’s decision straightforward. But this was a surprisingly hawkish hold, with the MPC feeling it necessary to emphasise that policy would need to be restrictive for “an extended period of time.”
A world-first quantification of the environmental and social footprint of the global travel and tourism sector.
London’s dominance of the UK’s high value service sectors—information & communications and professional, technical, & scientific activities—is clear. But although London saw faster growth in info & comms jobs in the decade before the pandemic, it lagged other regions with respect to output (GVA). The reverse was true for the professional sector. And several cities, including Bristol, Manchester and others, have done well in important sub-sectors. Going forward, London will probably outpace other regions in high-value services, but not by much.
More than half of the African countries that we cover grapple with various degrees of debt distress, face unsustainable debt burdens, or actively seek to reprofile or restructure their public balance sheets. The threat of surging amortisations and debt interest costs sent countries including Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya to the IMF, albeit with mixed success. However, the political repercussions of creditor-required fiscal consolidation cannot be readily dismissed, as illustrated by Kenya in H1 2023.
The human cost of the earthquake that struck Morocco on September 8 has been terrible, but lower than it could have been. The same is true of the economic cost. We have taken a closer look at the economies of the affected regions, and at government’s emergency response plan, to evaluate the economic impact.
The purpose of this study is to review progress towards implementing track & trace (T&T) systems across the continent, to assess the compliance of existing systems with ITP requirements and to investigate the potential benefits from a regional perspective to combating illicit trade.
The purpose of this study is to review progress towards implementing track & trace (T&T) systems across the continent, to assess the compliance of existing systems with ITP requirements and to investigate the potential benefits from a regional perspective to combating illicit trade.
September 6 marked the end of the African Climate Summit in Kenya, heralding the start of a crucial journey to address the adverse impacts of climate change. Kenyan President William Ruto has positioned himself as Africa’s leading voice in the fight against global warming. According to Mr Ruto, the continent is losing 5% to 15% of its GDP growth per annum due to climate change.
The week before the publication of this Political Focus, Gabon underwent tremendous political change: in a coup d’état on August 30, soldiers overthrew President Ali Bongo after he had claimed an obviously fraudulent win in the presidential election held four days before. Mr Bongo had been in power since 2009. Before him, his father, Omar Bongo, ruled from 1967 to 2009 at the head of a hugely corrupt government. The coup leader and now interim president, General Brice Oligui Nguema, hinted that the coup had been planned before the election. The end of the Bongo era has been greeted with joy and optimism in Gabon and abroad.
Most measures of inflation expectations eased in recent months, with the notable exceptions not as bad as they look. This improvement alleviates concerns about possible second-round effects or an unanchoring of inflation expectations, making it easier for the European Central Bank to bring actual inflation back to its 2% target. This will also facilitate a gradual return from the ECB to a more traditional reaction function after a period where taming high inflation was the sole focus.
Luxury cruise capacity is set to nearly double by 2028, with Luxury Segment capacity on track to expand 87% compared to 2019 fuelled in part by new entrants.
South Africa’s preparations for the 15th Brics Summit in August, which the country is hosting, have been overshadowed by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the warrant of arrest it issued for one of the expected attendees, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, on charges of war crimes. Domestic and foreign critics have accused Pretoria of being much too cosy with Moscow, notwithstanding official assurances that South Africa is neutral in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and Washington’s ambassador to the country caused a diplomatic storm in May when he claimed that South Africa had supplied Russia with weapons. Denials have since given way to a diplomatic charm offensive with South African officials trying to temper the concerns of the country’s Western partners, who account for much of its trade, and its Brics partners, who are poised to welcome new members.
The furnished housing market has long been perceived as an insignificant market segment. Our research shows that in 2022 about 14% of renters in Germany lived in furnished apartments. In addition, the market segment is growing. The share of listings for furnished apartments as a share of all rental apartment listings has risen by 45% between January 2013 and January 2022.
