Our Insights

As Fed Chair Jay Powell surveys the surprisingly resilient US economy that followed his tightening cycle, our nowcast suggests manufacturing remains a pocket of weakness. Industrial production shrank by 0.2% year-on-year in March, according to CEIC’s latest estimate. That’s unchanged from February.

In an uncertain and harder to predict geopolitical and economic environment, talks about new world order or at least about significant shifts in international relations are not unfounded. In that sense an appropriate approach to observe the data is to zoom out. When monitoring key indicators in decade and not monthly increments the reorientation of key emerging markets towards China is straightforward. Let's take a look at South-East Asia for example, where the majority of the global population lives.

China’s producer prices dropped by 2.5% year-on-year in January, marking the 16th consecutive month of negative producer inflation. While this makes China’s export goods more competitive globally, the inexpensive exports from China have also aided countries in Asia and Latin America in controlling inflation throughout 2023.