• Fitch Solutions forecast Puerto Rico’s current account surplus will widen in Fiscal Year 2022 (FY2022; July 2021-June 2022) due to a rebound in exports and federal aid inflows. 
• Fitch forecast the surplus will reach 17.8% of GNP in FY2022, up from an estimated 11.5% in FY2021 and notably wider than its regional peers. 
• The agency expects surpluses will persist over the long term, due to billions of dollars of federal aid that the US territory is slated to receive in the coming decade.

(Source: Fitch Solutions)

• Europe should not see an inflation spiral as a spike in energy prices is expected to fade next year and there is slack in the continent's labour market, the IMF European department chief said on Wednesday. 
• "We don't at this stage, expect any inflation spiral in Europe," IMF European Department Director Alfred Kammer told a news briefing. "The high inflation which we are seeing right now is really driven by an increase in energy prices, and we expect that to fade out during 2022." 
• Kammer said that a supply-demand mismatch on energy was partly due to the restart of economic activity and other factors such as the weather. 
• He said consumer price increases in the euro zone seen so far were not translating into second-round wage increases, partly because of slack in the labour market, with hours worked still 3% below pre-pandemic levels.

(Source: Reuters)

• Britain said on Wednesday it had secured deals for two COVID-19 antivirals, one developed by Merck and the other by Pfizer, which it said could be used to treat patients by the end of the year if regulatory approval is granted. 
• Prime Minister Boris Johnson has removed almost all COVID-19 restrictions and is relying on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to try and withstand winter pressures on hospitals given high case numbers of more than 40,000 new infections a day. 
• "We may soon have a new defence in our arsenal with two new antiviral drugs that we have secured," health minister Sajid Javid said in a statement. 
• Britain said it had secured 480,000 courses of Merck's molnupiravir, an antiviral pill which can be used in non-hospitalised patients

(Source: Reuters)

• KPREIT, on October 11, 2021, completed the acquisition of an approximately 1.5-acre property in the Cross Roads area that will be developed to house small bay warehouse units. This continues KPREIT’s thrust to increase its holdings of industrial properties in the jurisdictions in which it operates. The property was acquired for a consideration of J$75Mn. 
• The purchase follows the company’s recent agreement with a developer in the Cayman Islands to acquire three mixed-use units and last year’s acquisition of an approximately 88,000 sq. ft. warehouse property in the industrial belt of Kingston, Jamaica. 
• For the six months ended June 30, 2021, KPREIT reported a 59% year on year increase in rental revenue to US$1.4Mn, while net profit amounted to US$927,202 in 2021 versus a loss of US$343,397 in the prior year. 
• If the expected benefits from these investments materialize, KPREIT’s revenue generation, bottom-line, and valuation will likely increase. The local industrial real estate sector, at large, is also expected to benefit from increased and possibly higher prices and rental yields, as companies invest in warehouses and logistics centres, to facilitate consumer demand and take advantage of opportunities

(Source: JSE News & NCBCM Research Team)

• In light of the economic pains unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, commercial banks on the advice of the country’s regulator, the Bank of Guyana, have provided more than $22Bn in COVID-19 relief to cushion the blow to the economy. 
• According to the Bank of Guyana’s 2021 Half Year Report, Citizens Bank Guyana Inc. granted $12Bn in relief to sections of the economy, while Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) granted $6Bn and Bank of Nova Scotia granted $4.2Bn. Collectively, they account for $22.2Bn of total relief measures granted at the end of June 2021 by the banking sector. 
• Expounding further, Central Bank said the services sub-sector continues to receive the largest portion of relief, with 60.2% (G$16.5Bn) of total relief granted at the end of June 2021. The real estate mortgages sector received 19.9% (G$5.5Bn) of total relief followed by the manufacturing subsector with 11.6% (G$3.2Bn). 
• As for relief granted to the households sector, this represented 3.1% (G$846Mn) of total relief granted and 2.5% of total loans to the households sector.
• The Bank of Guyana was keen to note that it will continue to monitor the developments in light of COVID-19 relief and take all necessary steps to protect the safety, soundness and stability of the banking system.

(Source: Kaieteur News)

• Fitch Solutions forecast Costa Rica’s current account deficit will be 2.8% of GDP in 2021 and 2.7% of GDP in 2022, from 2.2% in 2020, due to rising import growth and a growing primary income account deficit. 
• A broadening economic recovery will cause the goods trade deficit and primary income deficit to widen in the near term, though stronger tourism activity in 2022 onwards will help bolster services exports. 
• Higher international reserves in 2022 will provide a financial buffer and stabilise Costa Rica’s external position over the coming quarters as the government implements fiscal austerity measures as a condition of its USD1.8Bn IMF deal. 
• Costa Rica reached a fiscal deficit of 3.89% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first nine months of 2021, lower than the 6.43% posted in the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance reported Monday.

(Source: Fitch Solutions & The Rio Times)

• The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday slashed this year's economic growth forecast for Asia and warned that a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections, supply chain disruptions and inflation pressures pose downside risks to the outlook. 
• In its regional outlook report, the IMF cut this year's economic growth forecast for Asia to 6.5%, down 1.1 percentage point from its projection made in April, as a spike in Delta variant cases hit consumption and factory output. However, it raised the growth forecast for 2022 to 5.7% from 5.3%. 
• "Although Asia and Pacific remains the fastest growing region in the world, the divergence between Asian advanced economies and developing economies is deepening," the report said. 
• "Risks are tilted to the downside," mainly on uncertainty over the pandemic, supply chain disruptions and potential spillovers from U.S. policy normalization.  

(Source: Reuters)

• Reuters claims, based on a draft document, that the World Health Organization has a programme to ensure poorer countries get fair access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments which includes antiviral drugs for patients with mild symptoms for as little as $10. 
• Merck & Co's experimental pill molnupiravir is likely to be one of the drugs, and other drugs to treat mild symptoms are being developed. 
• The document says that the programme wants to deliver about 1 billion COVID-19 tests to poorer nations, and procure drugs to treat up to 120 million patients globally, out of about 200 million new cases it estimates in the next 12 months. 
• The plans highlight how the WHO wants to shore up supplies of drugs and tests at a relatively low price after losing the vaccine race to wealthy nations which scooped up a huge share of the world's supplies, leaving the world's poorest countries with few shots. 
• An improvement in the inoculation rates would reduce deaths, hospitalisations, the pandemic’s impact on the health care system, and, foster a faster recovery rate for these poorer economies.

(Source: Reuters & NCBCM Research Team)

• Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says Jamaica has welcomed a total of 1.29Mn visitors since the reopening of the country’s borders in June 2020, with estimated earnings of US$1.70Bn. 
• These figures, which account for arrivals up to September 2021, comprise approximately 1,276,987 stopover visitors and 8,381 cruise passengers. This puts the country on track to reach the forecast for 2021, which is for 1.57Mn visitors and more than US$2.0Bn in earnings. 
• However, the forecast for 2021 is still below the visitors in 2019 of 4,233,266 but above the arrivals for 2020 of 1,329,675. Notably, stopover arrivals and cruise arrivals in 2019 were 2,680,920 and 1,552,346 respectively, while for 2020 they were 880,404 and 449,271. 
• Meanwhile, the Tourism Minister said that the cruise industry should be fully back on track by December with projections for approximately 300,000 cruise passengers by year end. The return of cruise shipping signals the second critical phase of the reopening of the tourism industry and will aid greatly in bringing back much-needed jobs.

(Source: JIS News)

• Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, has said that the Ministry of Health and Wellness is aiming to have 30.0% to 40.0% of Jamaica’s population receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before the Christmas holiday. This will help to prevent an increase in hospitalisations, as more persons will be inclined to travel and do much shopping for holiday preparations.
• To date, the Ministry has reported that the number of cases, deaths and hospitalisations are decreasing; however, the current number of cases still significantly impacts hospital services. As it stands, Jamaica needs to bring its cases down to less than 200 cases to be in the safe zone, where providing health care to persons infected withCOVID-19 won’t severely impact the rest of the activities in the hospitals. 
• Meanwhile, Dr. Bisasor-McKenzie noted that 80,000 of 120,000 persons who received the jab in August 2021 are due for their second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In total, 7.5% of the population are currently partly vaccinated, while 11.4% are fully vaccinated. Greater vaccination will help to reduce the deaths and hospitalisations and the pandemic’s impact on health services. 
• If the government is able to achieve its target, it would put it in a position to relax containment measures, which would increase commercial activity and result in a faster rebound in economic activity.

(Source: JIS News & NCBCM Research)