Sanele Mjikane 
The rapid surge in interest rates will continue to weigh on the Nordic economies next year with little external support, but it’s not all gloom with inflation easing and some pockets of strength. We think four themes will be key in charting the outlook for Nordic economies in 2024:
Next year holds promise for the dawning of a new industry in Africa and somewhat of a commercial renaissance taking place in Kenya – East Africa’s economic anchor. Our watchlist for 2024 also foregrounds major currency devaluations in Ethiopia and Egypt and a strong probability of coups d’état in Cameroon and Tunisia. We expect support for the African National Congress (ANC) to drop below 50% in South Africa’s general elections, but that coalitions with smaller parties will allow the ruling party to cling to power.
We forecast no rate cuts by the Fed up to and including the July meeting, while the market prices 72bps. We therefore see value in paying July FOMC-dated Fed Funds swaps, currently trading at 4.61%.
In this presentation deck, we grappled with some of the Africa’s most pressing issues for 2024 and beyond. We explored Africa’s alternative funding strategies during challenging times, examined the continent’s growth hotspot, and unpacked South Africa’s political economy in the lead up to the general elections in 2024.
Growth in most LatAm economies will be below consensus. Economic momentum has surprised to
the upside through most of 2023, but the full effects of record global and domestic monetary tightening are yet to be seen.
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.
