We believe multilateral support will be critical for South Africa going forward. Moody’s rating downgrade will likely trigger further capital outflows in 2020Q2. This will continue the pressure on the ZAR, which we have flagged as overvalued. Economic contraction and higher funding costs will likely make debt unsustainable.

China’s NPL ratio has been remarkably stable amid slowing economic growth, largely because many NPLs have been written off. Without these write-offs, China’s NPL ratio would be at 4.85% today instead of the actual 1.86%. More institutions and instruments have been introduced to clean up NPLs. 

We rank EM on preparedness to handle COVID-19, beyond the scope there may be to ease macro policies.

This short briefing note analyzes the recent Bank of Canada and Bank of England discussion papers on potential Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Our MENA growth forecast stands at -0.3% with additional downside risks and high uncertainty over the duration of the shutdown and an additional potential fall on oil prices. We project recession in most oil exporters, the lowest growth in oil importers since the early 1990s, and wide twin deficits. 

Global household debt tops $47 trillion—over $12 trillion higher than in the run-up to the 2008 global financial crisis; More than three-fourths of the 75 countries in our sample now have higher household debt-to-GDP ratios than in 2007.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and the Federal Government have begun to implement a series of policy measures to address the economic and financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two grids in this document break out the recent policy responses.