All eyes will be on China on Monday, when the National Bureau of Statistics is going to release several high-frequency indicators on economic activity for January and February, namely fixed asset investment, retail sales, unemployment rate and industrial production.

The data release this month is of particular importance as it will show the impact of the Spring Festival holidays in February as well as the base-year effect of the lockdown in Wuhan and the rest of the country a year ago. You can sign-in to access more data in "China Databank: Real Sector".

Also on Monday, Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics is expected to release February foreign trade data with the country’s trade surplus constantly declining in the past three months due to the increase in imports and despite the commodity price growth.

On Tuesday, some key economic activity data for February for the US will be released, including retail sales, export and import prices, industrial production, and capacity utilisation rate. The German-based Centre for European Economic Research will release the economic sentiment indicators for Germany and other major eurozone countries.

2021-03-12_08h56_17

Japan’s trade balance for February is expected to be published on Wednesday after in January the Asian economy registered its first negative trade balance since June 2020. The US Census Bureau is going to release the February data on new housing started and authorized on the same day.

2021-03-12_09h09_23

From our COVID-19 Recovery Tracker

The COVID-19 cases in Brazil continue to increase, surpassing 60,000 daily cases on a seven-day moving average basis as of 11 March. On the other hand, the daily vaccinations in the Latin American country is growing with more than 1,500 daily vaccinations per million people in the second week of March. 

2021-03-12_09h13_23

2021-03-12_09h13_49

Sign in to access the COVID-19 Recovery Tracker.

Brazil Economy in a Snapshot - Q1 2021

Real GDP increased by a seasonally-adjusted 3.2% q/q and declined at the slower pace of 1.1% y/y (unadjusted) in Q4 2020. This compares with falls of 3.9% y/y in Q3 and 10.9% y/y in Q2, and it has led to a year-average decline of 4.1% for 2020 following annual growth of 1.1% in 2019. Higher prices of food and beverages pushed the consumer price inflation rate up to 4.52% in December 2020, its highest since 2016.

The central bank’s monetary policy committee decided to keep its policy interest rate, the Selic rate, at 2.0% at its January 2021 meeting due to the low level of domestic economic activity. The unemployment rate totalled 14.1% in the three-month period which ended in November. Informal (unregistered) workers totalled 33.5mn in the period.

Sign in to read the full insight here

Indonesia Foreign Trade: Regional Impact

DKI Jakarta is the most prominent region in terms of foreign trade. In 2020, 31.7% of Indonesia’s total export value and 50.9% of all import value came from DKI Jakarta. While the share of exports has been rising, the share of the imports has been declining. The nine biggest export regions of Indonesia made up 82.8% of the total export value in 2020. Exports from DKI Jakarta amounted to USD 53.7tn, followed by East Java (USD 19.2tn) and Riau (USD 13.8tn). In 2020, 92.7% of the total value of Indonesian imports was concentrated into nine regions, with DKI Jakarta importing goods valued at USD 72tn, followed by East Java (USD 20tn) and Riau Islands (USD 11.3tn). Riau and DKI Jakarta recorded the biggest growth in export value among the biggest export hubs.

Access the full insight here

South Africa Economy in a Snapshot - Q1 2021

In Q4 2020, real GDP grew by a seasonally adjusted 1.5% q/q to end three quarters of decline caused by the disruptions to global trade and the domestic economy after restrictions were introduced to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, real GDP continued to fall on an unadjusted y/y basis in Q4, albeit at the softer pace of 4.1%, following a drop of 6.2% y/y in Q3 2020.

2021-03-12_09h25_36

Thus, overall, the South African economy posted a year-average decline of 7% in 2020, the worst performance since the Second World War, following marginal growth of 0.2% in 2019. Headline inflation measured by the consumer price index (CPI) was 3.2% in January 2021, slightly above the 3.1% registered in December 2020. Core inflation was unchanged from the previous month at 3.3%.

Sign in to read the full insight here

Discover the CEIC Global Database and learn how you can gain access to over 6.6 million time series data, covering over 200 economies, across 18 macroeconomic sectors.