Tuesday, September 29, 2009

"Brasil es el país del mundo más parecido a EE UU" · ELPAÍS.com

Desde Brasilia, Mangabeira analiza las grandes líneas de la vida política, social y económica de Brasil y las grandes corrientes internacionales, pero eso no le parece suficiente. "Lo que intento es definir iniciativas concretas que encarnen o anticipen ese cambio en la trayectoria institucional del país. Escoger iniciativas en políticas públicas sectoriales que tengan efecto práctico inmediato pero que también prefiguren el cambio de rumbo que necesita el país". Uno de los últimos libros de Mangabeira se titula ¿Qué debería proponer la izquierda?

Pregunta. ¿Qué debería proponer hoy la izquierda en el mundo?

Respuesta. Básicamente hay tres izquierdas en el mundo. Hay una vendida, que acepta el mercado y la globalización en sus formas actuales y que quiere simplemente humanizarlas por medio de políticas sociales. Para esa izquierda, sólo se trata de humanizar lo inevitable. Su programa es el de sus adversarios, con un descuento social y una renta moral y narcisista. Hay otra izquierda, recalcitrante, que quiere desacelerar el progreso de los mercados y la globalización, en defensa de su base histórica tradicional (los trabajadores sindicalizados de grandes industrias). Y hay una tercera izquierda, la que me interesa, que quiere reconstruir el mercado y reorientar la globalización con un conjunto de innovaciones institucionales. Para esa izquierda, lo primero es democratizar la economía de mercado, lo segundo capacitar al pueblo y lo tercero, profundizar la democracia. Yo entiendo ese proyecto como una propuesta de la izquierda para la izquierda. Diría, con un lenguaje provocativo y algo teológico, que la ambición de esa izquierda no es humanizar la sociedad, sino divinizar la humanidad. El objetivo es elevar la vida común de las personas comunes al plano más alto.

P. ¿Cómo analiza hoy día la crisis económica internacional?

R. Yo diría que hace mucho tiempo que el mundo está sometido al yugo de una dictadura de falta de alternativas y que, en general, en la historia moderna, los cambios fueron forzados por las guerras y los colapsos económicos. El trauma fue el requisito de la transformación. Hoy hay una gran pobreza de ideas sobre las alternativas en el mundo. Las ideas que orientaron la izquierda históricamente, como el marxismo, son fallidas, y la respuesta a la crisis financiera internacional revela de una forma muy dramática las consecuencias de esa pobreza de ideas. No hay nada que no sea una versión momificada del keynesianismo vulgar, es la única luz en esta oscuridad. Hasta ahora, el debate ha estado casi enteramente dominado por dos temas superficiales: el imperativo de regular los mercados financieros y la necesidad de adoptar políticas fiscales y monetarias expansionistas. Son ideas muy por debajo de la dimensión del problema.

P. ¿De qué habría que debatir entonces?

R. Todo lo que se puede hacer en materia de regulación de los mercados financieros y de expansionismo fiscal y monetario depende, para su eficacia, del enfrentamiento de tres temas más importantes. Primero, la necesidad de superar los desequilibrios estructurales en la economía mundial entre los países con superávit en comercio y ahorro, empezando por China, y los países deficitarios en comercio y ahorro, comenzando por EE UU. El motor del crecimiento mundial, en los últimos años, fue el acuerdo implícito entre esos dos elementos. Ese motor se ha roto y vamos a tener que conseguir otro. Eso exigirá grandes cambios en EE UU, en China y en la organización de la economía mundial.

P. ¿No se trata de regular, sino de reorganizar?

R. Efectivamente. Vamos al segundo punto: la necesidad de que la regulación de los mercados financieros sea parte de una tarea mayor, que es reorganizar la relación entre el sistema financiero y la producción. De la forma en que se organizan hoy las economías de mercado, el sistema productivo está básicamente autofinanciado. ¿Cuál es entonces el propósito de todo el dinero que está en los bancos y en las bolsas de valores? Teóricamente sirve para financiar la producción, pero en realidad sólo va oblicuamente a ese cometido. Eso es el resultado de las instituciones existentes. En este sistema, las finanzas son relativamente indiferentes a la producción en tiempos de bonanza y son una amenaza destructiva cuando surge una crisis como ésta. Es decir, son indiferentes para el bien y eficaces para el mal.

P. ¿Y el debate sobre la distribución de la riqueza?

R. Ése es el tercer punto. El vínculo entre recuperación y redistribución. Todos admiramos la construcción en la segunda mitad del siglo XX en EE UU de un mercado de consumo en masa. En principio, la construcción de ese tipo de mercado exige la democratización del poder adquisitivo y, por lo tanto, redistribución de la renta y de la riqueza, pero en EE UU sucedió lo contrario, hubo una violenta concentración de la renta y de la riqueza. ¿Cómo consiguieron la construcción de un mercado de consumo en masa? Parte de la respuesta está en lo que sucedió con la supervalorización inmobiliaria ficticia. Ha habido una falsa democratización del crédito, que hizo las veces de la democratización de redistribución la renta, que no hubo. Y ahora que ese sistema está destruido, es necesario crear una nueva base para el mercado. Lo que les digo a mis conciudadanos es que quiero una dinámica de rebeldía, que necesita como aliada la imaginación institucional.

P. ¿Cómo son las relaciones entre Brasil y Estados Unidos?

R. Yo digo siempre que Brasil es el país del mundo más parecido a EE UU. Son dos países con tamaños semejantes, fundados con población europea y esclavitud africana, multiétnicos. Muy desiguales, pero donde la gente común sigue pensando que todo es posible. EE UU está buscando, en este momento de inflexión histórica, un sucedáneo al proyecto de Roosevelt. En Brasil estamos en una búsqueda paralela de un modelo de desarrollo. Mi propuesta es que construyamos experimentos comunes en las instituciones que definen la economía de mercado y la democracia (FMI, Banco Mundial, OMC, ONU).

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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Leaders' Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit

In a historic shift, the G20 emerged from its summit in Pittsburgh today as the world’s official forum on global economic issues, replacing the outdated G8.

As expected, the group addressed two main crisis-related challenges—supporting the recovery by maintaining stimulus packages and rebalancing the global economy, and applying lessons learned from the crisis to financial regulations and international financial institution (IFI) reform. In addition—and in keeping with its new-found status—it approached a crucial long-term issue, climate change, for the first time. While the G8 may continue to deal with issues of foreign relations, the G20 has clearly stepped into its role as the main economic global forum. This shift is the single most important result to come out of the summit, but is not its only achievement.


Here the Leaders' Statement:

1. We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy.

2. When we last gathered in April, we confronted the greatest challenge to the world economy in our generation.

3. Global output was contracting at pace not seen since the 1930s. Trade was plummeting. Jobs were disappearing rapidly. Our people worried that the world was on the edge of a depression.

4. At that time, our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital.

5. It worked.

6. Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and stabilize financial markets. Industrial output is now rising in nearly all our economies. International trade is starting to recover. Our financial institutions are raising needed capital, financial markets are showing a willingness to invest and lend, and confidence has improved.

7. Today, we reviewed the progress we have made since the London Summit in April. Our national commitments to restore growth resulted in the largest and most coordinated fiscal and monetary stimulus ever undertaken. We acted together to increase dramatically the resources necessary to stop the crisis from spreading around the world. We took steps to fix the broken regulatory system and started to implement sweeping reforms to reduce the risk that financial excesses will again destabilize the global economy.

8. A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency.

9. The process of recovery and repair remains incomplete. In many countries, unemployment remains unacceptably high. The conditions for a recovery of private demand are not yet fully in place. We cannot rest until the global economy is restored to full health, and hard-working families the world over can find decent jobs.

10. We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured. We will act to ensure that when growth returns, jobs do too. We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus. At the same time, we will prepare our exit strategies and, when the time is right, withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a cooperative and coordinated way, maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility.

11. Even as the work of recovery continues, we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21st century. We recognize that we have to act forcefully to overcome the legacy of the recent, severe global economic crisis and to help people cope with the consequences of this crisis. We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility not recklessness.

12. Today we agreed:

13. To launch a framework that lays out the policies and the way we act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. We need a durable recovery that creates the good jobs our people need.

14. We need to shift from public to private sources of demand, establish a pattern of growth across countries that is more sustainable and balanced, and reduce development imbalances. We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices and adopt macroeconomic policies, consistent with price stability, that promote adequate and balanced global demand. We will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential.

15. Our Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth is a compact that commits us to work together to assess how our policies fit together, to evaluate whether they are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced growth, and to act as necessary to meet our common objectives.

16. To make sure our regulatory system for banks and other financial firms reins in the excesses that led to the crisis. Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual.

17. We committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking, to improve the over-the-counter derivatives market and to create more powerful tools to hold large global firms to account for the risks they take. Standards for large global financial firms should be commensurate with the cost of their failure. For all these reforms, we have set for ourselves strict and precise timetables.

18. To reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21st century. After this crisis, critical players need to be at the table and fully vested in our institutions to allow us to cooperate to lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth.

19. We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation. We established the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to include major emerging economies and welcome its efforts to coordinate and monitor progress in strengthening financial regulation.

20. We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5% from over-represented countries to under-represented countries using the current quota formula as the basis to work from. Today we have delivered on our promise to contribute over $500 billion to a renewed and expanded IMF New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB).

21. We stressed the importance of adopting a dynamic formula at the World Bank which primarily reflects countries’ evolving economic weight and the World Bank’s development mission, and that generates an increase of at least 3% of voting power for developing and transition countries, to the benefit of under-represented countries. While recognizing that over-represented countries will make a contribution, it will be important to protect the voting power of the smallest poor countries. We called on the World Bank to play a leading role in responding to problems whose nature requires globally coordinated action, such as climate change and food security, and agreed that the World Bank and the regional development banks should have sufficient resources to address these challenges and fulfill their mandates.

22. To take new steps to increase access to food, fuel and finance among the world’s poorest while clamping down on illicit outflows. Steps to reduce the development gap can be a potent driver of global growth.

23. Over four billion people remain undereducated, ill-equipped with capital and technology, and insufficiently integrated into the global economy. We need to work together to make the policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate the convergence of living standards and productivity in developing and emerging economies to the levels of the advanced economies. To start, we call on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative for low-income countries announced last summer. We will increase, on a voluntary basis, funding for programs to bring clean affordable energy to the poorest, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program.

24. To phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support for the poorest. Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, reduce our energy security, impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change.

25. We call on our Energy and Finance Ministers to report to us their implementation strategies and timeline for acting to meet this critical commitment at our next meeting.

26. We will promote energy market transparency and market stability as part of our broader effort to avoid excessive volatility.

27. To maintain our openness and move toward greener, more sustainable growth.

28. We will fight protectionism. We are committed to bringing the Doha Round to a successful conclusion in 2010.

29. We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.

30. We warmly welcome the report by the Chair of the London Summit commissioned at our last meeting and published today.

31. Finally, we agreed to meet in Canada in June 2010 and in Korea in November 2010. We expect to meet annually thereafter and will meet in France in 2011.

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G-20 to take a bigger role in global economy

G20 leaders' group photo

President Obama, hosting his first Group of 20 summit, managed to achieve most but not all of his top objectives, including getting member nations to agree to review one another’s economic policies to ensure they do not provoke a repeat of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

“Because our global economy is now fundamentally interconnected, we need to act together to make sure the recovery creates new jobs and industries while preventing the kind of imbalances and abuses that led us into this crisis,’’ Obama said at a news conference at the close of the two-day meeting.

The summit was the third gathering of G-20 leaders since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year triggered a global economic free fall. Since then, early signs of recovery have emerged around the world, and in the weeks leading up to the summit, the G-20 leaders faced questions about whether it was time to tighten interest rates and withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending. They arrived in Pittsburgh already in agreement that the global economy was still too fragile to warrant a pullback.

“A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency,’’ the leaders said in a joint statement. “The process of recovery and repair remains incomplete.’’

The global economy has become stable enough, however, for the leaders to turn their attention to preventing future financial crises. The United States and European nations were able to settle differences over how best to stem irresponsible risk-taking by financial companies. The United States had emphasized the need to raise the quality and quantity of capital that banks must hold to cover potential losses. The Europeans had stressed restrictions on bankers’ pay, including hard limits. In the end, the leaders agreed to those principles - but without the hard limits - as well as better aligning executive compensation with long-term performance and more transparency for trading in complex securities known as derivatives.

Obama was also able to get Europe and China to commit to avoid pursuing economic policies that fuel the huge global imbalances blamed by economists for helping spark the current crisis. Under the agreement, countries with large deficits such as the United States would promise to borrow less while major exporters such as China and Germany would pledge to stimulate domestic consumption. The members agreed to use the International Monetary Fund to help review their economic policies to make sure they do not generate harmful imbalances.

While other G-20 members signed off on the US proposal, many remained skeptical of its effectiveness and its purpose.

What made it easier to sign on is that countries that fail to adhere to the agreement face no penalties.

Critics noted that similar arrangements have been tried before, with little impact on national decisions.

But Edwin Truman, a fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Treasury official, said this latest attempt at rebalancing global growth is promising because it puts leaders on the record and potentially raises the political stakes for them if they fail to comply.

The G-20 also agreed to make itself the principal forum for global economic issues, eclipsing the older, West-dominated Group of Eight and further institutionalizing the new economic order. The Obama administration sees increasing the clout of emerging economies in international institutions as essential to getting developing nations to play a bigger role on other issues such as climate change.

To better reflect the growing role of China, Brazil, and other emerging nations, the G-20 leaders also approved a change of the governance structure of the IMF and World Bank. Summit participants agreed to increase developing nations’ quota of representation shares by 5 percent at the IMF and 3 percent at the World Bank.

Changing the structure of those institutions is key to helping prevent future crises, said Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist and Peterson Institute fellow. Countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan began building huge reserves after the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s and their bad experiences with the IMF.

“They have to believe in the IMF so they don’t build huge reserves,’’ Johnson said.

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Fed says U.S. recovery is underway

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/16/business/16bernanke-600.jpg


The Federal Reserve on Wednesday upgraded its assessment of the U.S. economy, saying growth had returned after a deep recession, while reiterating its promise to hold interest rates very low for a long time.

The Fed also said it would slow its purchases of mortgage debt to extend that program's life until the end of March, in a move toward withdrawing the central bank's extraordinary support for the economy and markets during the contraction.

The U.S. central bank, as widely expected, held its benchmark overnight lending rates at close to zero percent.

"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August suggests that economic activity has picked up following its severe downturn," the Fed said in a statement after its two-day policy meeting.

"Conditions in financial markets have improved further and activity in the housing sector has increased," it said.

U.S. government bond yields ended lower on the news that the central bank had reiterated a pledge to keep rates ultra-low for an extended period.

"I think it confirms that the economy still needs a little bit of help and that rates aren't going to go up anytime soon," said Alan Lancz at Alan B. Lancz & Associates in Toledo, Ohio.

But a stock market rally fizzled on concerns the Fed was setting the stage for pulling back from its efforts to stimulate the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 81.77 points or 0.83 percent at 9,748.10.

"There's still a lot of problems with mortgages, the housing market in general as well as the banking sector," said Dan Faretta, a market strategist at Lind-Waldock, a brokerage firm, in Chicago.

The Fed said it would gradually slow the pace of its purchases of mortgage-related debt in order to promote a smooth transition in markets as the Fed has been the biggest buyer.

But it made clear it would purchase the full amount of $1.25 trillion in agency mortgage-backed securities. In its August statement the Fed had said it would buy "up to" that amount, but dropped those two words on Wednesday.

At least one member of the Fed's policy-setting committee had proposed curtailing mortgage-backed securities purchases, saying they provide too much of a boost as recovery takes off.

The Fed doubled the size of its balance sheet to more than $2 trillion as it flooded financial markets with money during the crisis last year.

Some policy-makers worry the bloated balance sheet risks triggering inflation if the Fed waits too long before removing its stimulus measures and raising interest rates.

However, the U.S. central bank on Wednesday played down concerns about price pressures in an economy where the jobless rate is at a 26-year high and factory capacity is greatly underutilized.

Policy-makers said inflation would remain subdued for some time with substantial slack in the economy dampening cost pressures, and with long-term inflation expectations stable.

In August the Fed had noted rises in energy and commodity prices, but dropped that reference this week, suggesting that worries about inflation had diminished.

The Fed has maintained its support for the economy, even after cutting interest rates to near zero, through a campaign to buy $300 billion of longer-dated U.S. government bonds and $1.45 trillion of mortgage-related debt, in order to keep lending rates low.

The Fed opted in August to taper down the U.S. Treasury debt purchases by the end of October, and had been expected to opt for a similar gradual withdrawal for its mortgage debt buying which initially had been scheduled to close at year-end.

The U.S. central bank must walk a delicate path between acknowledging the recovery evident in the economy, and assuring investors that it remains attuned to the risks of a double dip recession as policy stimulus fades next year.

This means exiting in time from aggressive steps aimed at boosting growth to avoid igniting inflation as the economy picks up steam, while not smothering the recovery in the process.

Recent data has pointed to turnarounds in manufacturing, housing markets and consumer sentiment, and many analysts expect strong growth in the third quarter after four quarters of contraction. However, with unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, most analysts nevertheless expect consumer spending to remain weak and damp the recovery.

(Reporting by Alister Bull, Mark Felsenthal, David Lawder and Ellis Mnyandu and Ryan Vlastelica in New York; Editing by Simon Denyer)

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Trade agreements: Doing Doha down

SOMETHING is usually better than nothing. Shorn of all of the economic jargon and legal niceties, that is the logic behind the booming business in bilateral trade deals that is sweeping Asia. As the Doha round of world trade talks languishes, Asia’s trading nations say that they cannot afford to sit on their hands and wait for Doha to revive. Better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful.

Some regional trade deals in the right circumstances have indeed added to economic well-being. But the sorts of deals that are now being signed in Asia, just when multilateral trade desperately needs supporting, are likely to do less for their countries’ economies than for the egos of the politicians who sponsor them. Taken as a trend, they amount to a dangerous erosion of the system of multilateral trade on which global prosperity depends.

In 2001 there were just 49 bilateral and regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) in place. A deal signed last month between India and South Korea raised the total to 167 (see article). That recent agreement was trumpeted as a boon for both economies. South Korean firms say they are keen to make more use of India as a manufacturing base from which to export to the rest of the world. In return, Indian programmers will more easily be able to set up shop in South Korea.

More such agreements are likely to follow. And who could object to that? In a world of collapsing exports and rising protectionism, the fashion for bilateral deals looks like a welcome boost to the idea that trade is good. Peer deeper, however, and the message is far less reassuring.
Noodles all round

For a start, bilateral deals impose so much paperwork and bureaucracy on trade that companies rarely make use of their provisions. Only about a fifth of 609 firms in four Asian countries surveyed by the Asian Development Bank in 2008 took advantage of the agreements that applied to them.

When bilateral agreements are attractive to companies, it is often for the wrong reasons. Many bilateral trade deals offer favourable treatment to a few companies from a particular country at the expense of all the rest from elsewhere in the world. The companies that lose out may well be lower-cost producers, since such agreements are dictated more by politics than by economics. If so, the economy will suffer. Even if such a deal is eventually superseded by a broader one, it may already have caused long-term damage by allowing less efficient firms to become entrenched. Economies that are too small to extract concessions from their bigger bilateral negotiating partners fare particularly badly.

Then there is the complexity of the growing number of bilateral and regional deals. Each has its own rules and administrative requirements, leading to a confusing spaghetti (or perhaps noodle soup) of preferential agreements, instead of the predictability that multilateralism promises. As such agreements multiply, there is less chance that they create the wealth that their authors claim.

Some claim that the tricky issues that stand in the way of a multilateral deal can be more easily resolved when only two countries are sitting at the table. That rarely happens: in the rush to conclude an agreement, such issues are often shelved. India’s deal with ASEAN last year, for instance, put aside the poisonous question of farm trade, which was one of the deal-breakers in the Doha talks last July.

Bilateral agreements, thus, do not, on the whole, serve as stepping stones to a comprehensive global deal. On the contrary, they both distract governments from the multilateral process and offer cover for politicians’ failure to advance it. Moreover, the fear of losing favourable treatment in a bilateral agreement can deter governments from talking tough in multilateral negotiations.

Some defenders of bilateralism admit all this, but cling to one argument they regard as clinching—that bilateral agreements are at least possible, whereas the chances of concluding Doha seem ever more remote. The comparison, they say, is not between local deals and a global one, but between regional deals and no deals at all.

This argument ignores the lessons of the past. The history of the multilateral trading system is littered with rows, hiatuses, disillusion, despair—and sudden success. In the 1970s many people wrote off the precursor to the World Trade Organisation. The ministerial meeting of 1982 failed and the later Uruguay round of talks nearly collapsed, before being successfully concluded. Even now, amid deep pessimism about ever finishing Doha, the Indian government is holding a summit of trade ministers in the hope of restarting the talks. If they truly want Doha to succeed, the bilateralists need first to acknowledge that their own deals are poisoning its chances.

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Monday, September 21, 2009

México en lenta recuperación, según Moody's

Moody's afirma que la recuperación de la economía mexicana será lenta y gradual, ya que aunque algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, ésta no es generalizada y tampoco se puede afirmar que ya se tocó fondo. La calificadora señala que algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, pero no es generalizada; indicó que el año próximo la economía seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un rebote.

El director general de Moody's de México, Alberto Jones Tamayo, explicó que el proceso de recuperación será muy lento, "no estamos mirando meses, ni siquiera trimestres", y aunque hay sectores que están revirtiendo su caída "no se puede generalizar con afirmaciones de que ya se tocó fondo".

"De ahí a que las condiciones de demanda ya cambiaron, de que ya dio la vuelta, de que vamos a comenzar a remontar la recesión y vamos a tener crecimiento, no, definitivamente no, es la visión que tenemos", argumentó. Estimó que el año próximo la economía mexicana seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un "rebote aritmético" debido a la fuerte caída que registrará la actividad económica este año, cercana a 8.0%.

"Eso está lejos de ponernos en una situación como la que nos encontrábamos hace más de dos años; en otras palabras, una caída de 8.0%, con una recuperación de 2.0%, es una caída de 6.0%, cuando el año anterior apenas crecimos 2.0%", estimó.

En su opinión, con la contracción económica en la actual administración federal se ha retrasado el crecimiento de México por más de tres años, y vaticinó que seguramente este será un sexenio perdido en materia económica. Esto, porque además "el gobierno no tiene otra alternativa que ser austero en lo que resta del sexenio", ante la debilidad que presentan las finanzas públicas por la baja recaudación y la caída de los ingresos petroleros.

Es por ello, añadió Jones Tamayo, que no habrá un detonante adicional para el crecimiento económico que pudiera provenir del gasto público, especialmente del que más hace falta, que es la inversión en infraestructura.

"Entonces, sí podemos descontar que de aquí a que termine este administración el crecimiento económico habrá sido muy insuficiente para el país", proyectó el director general de Moody's de México. Algunas industrias mexicanas ya empiezan a mostrar una reversión en la velocidad con la que ha caído su producción, "pero no es una situación generalizada".

El directivo señaló que algunas ramas de la industria manufacturera pueden registrar alguna reversión, derivada de que los paquetes de estímulo multimillonarios que Estados Unidos aplicó desde hace casi un año están dando algún pequeño efecto.

Asimismo, está el hecho de que los inventarios en muchos sectores también se acabaron hace poco tiempo, lo que ha llevado a un proceso para reinventariar, y eso significa volver a producir. Aclaró que algunas industrias como la bancaria no sólo no estuvieron en recesión, sino que han continuado creciendo, en particular la rama de servicios financieros, lo que ha sido un gran mitigante ante la severa crisis que padece el país.

"Pero de ahí en fuera la situación sigue siendo muy complicada para la mayor parte, especialmente para la industria manufacturera", precisó el representante de Moody's al estimar que ante este panorama el proceso de recuperación en México será muy lento. Indicó que hay ramas muy acotadas de la actividad económica de México en las que ya se aprecia una mejoría, como son la industria automotriz y de autopartes, que ya empiezan a recibir pedidos de Estados Unidos.

Sin embargo, insistió, esto es un proceso muy gradual, "no se alcanzarán los niveles de producción que se tenían en 2007 en varios años, es un proceso muy lento". Sobre las calificaciones soberanas de México, que Moody's afirmó hace apenas unas semanas en Baa1 con una perspectiva estable, explicó que esta acción se basó en que la agencia no anticipa ningún cambio sustancial que pudiera mover la nota actual.

"En Moody's consideramos que no hay razón para pensar que la clase política de México va a cambiar de puntos de vista respecto a la situación actual y no anticipamos ningún cambio", señaló Jones Tamayo. Ante la posibilidad de que las otras calificadoras de riesgo crediticio, Standard & Poor's y Fitch, modifiquen las notas soberanas de México tras la aprobación del paquete económico de 2010 que se discute en el Congreso, subrayó que las decisiones de Moody's son independientes.

"Para nosotros nuestras decisiones son absolutamente independientes, la mejor prueba de ello es que hace unas semanas afirmamos algo que ya veníamos diciendo, que la perspectiva era estable, a pesar de que otras personas puedan pensar diferente", aclaró.

Moody's afirma que la recuperación de la economía mexicana será lenta y gradual, ya que aunque algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, ésta no es generalizada y tampoco se puede afirmar que ya se tocó fondo. La calificadora señala que algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, pero no es generalizada; indicó que el año próximo la economía seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un rebote.

El director general de Moody's de México, Alberto Jones Tamayo, explicó que el proceso de recuperación será muy lento, "no estamos mirando meses, ni siquiera trimestres", y aunque hay sectores que están revirtiendo su caída "no se puede generalizar con afirmaciones de que ya se tocó fondo".

"De ahí a que las condiciones de demanda ya cambiaron, de que ya dio la vuelta, de que vamos a comenzar a remontar la recesión y vamos a tener crecimiento, no, definitivamente no, es la visión que tenemos", argumentó. Estimó que el año próximo la economía mexicana seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un "rebote aritmético" debido a la fuerte caída que registrará la actividad económica este año, cercana a 8.0%.

"Eso está lejos de ponernos en una situación como la que nos encontrábamos hace más de dos años; en otras palabras, una caída de 8.0%, con una recuperación de 2.0%, es una caída de 6.0%, cuando el año anterior apenas crecimos 2.0%", estimó.

En su opinión, con la contracción económica en la actual administración federal se ha retrasado el crecimiento de México por más de tres años, y vaticinó que seguramente este será un sexenio perdido en materia económica. Esto, porque además "el gobierno no tiene otra alternativa que ser austero en lo que resta del sexenio", ante la debilidad que presentan las finanzas públicas por la baja recaudación y la caída de los ingresos petroleros.

Es por ello, añadió Jones Tamayo, que no habrá un detonante adicional para el crecimiento económico que pudiera provenir del gasto público, especialmente del que más hace falta, que es la inversión en infraestructura.

"Entonces, sí podemos descontar que de aquí a que termine este administración el crecimiento económico habrá sido muy insuficiente para el país", proyectó el director general de Moody's de México. Algunas industrias mexicanas ya empiezan a mostrar una reversión en la velocidad con la que ha caído su producción, "pero no es una situación generalizada".

El directivo señaló que algunas ramas de la industria manufacturera pueden registrar alguna reversión, derivada de que los paquetes de estímulo multimillonarios que Estados Unidos aplicó desde hace casi un año están dando algún pequeño efecto.

Asimismo, está el hecho de que los inventarios en muchos sectores también se acabaron hace poco tiempo, lo que ha llevado a un proceso para reinventariar, y eso significa volver a producir. Aclaró que algunas industrias como la bancaria no sólo no estuvieron en recesión, sino que han continuado creciendo, en particular la rama de servicios financieros, lo que ha sido un gran mitigante ante la severa crisis que padece el país.

"Pero de ahí en fuera la situación sigue siendo muy complicada para la mayor parte, especialmente para la industria manufacturera", precisó el representante de Moody's al estimar que ante este panorama el proceso de recuperación en México será muy lento. Indicó que hay ramas muy acotadas de la actividad económica de México en las que ya se aprecia una mejoría, como son la industria automotriz y de autopartes, que ya empiezan a recibir pedidos de Estados Unidos.

Sin embargo, insistió, esto es un proceso muy gradual, "no se alcanzarán los niveles de producción que se tenían en 2007 en varios años, es un proceso muy lento". Sobre las calificaciones soberanas de México, que Moody's afirmó hace apenas unas semanas en Baa1 con una perspectiva estable, explicó que esta acción se basó en que la agencia no anticipa ningún cambio sustancial que pudiera mover la nota actual.

"En Moody's consideramos que no hay razón para pensar que la clase política de México va a cambiar de puntos de vista respecto a la situación actual y no anticipamos ningún cambio", señaló Jones Tamayo. Ante la posibilidad de que las otras calificadoras de riesgo crediticio, Standard & Poor's y Fitch, modifiquen las notas soberanas de México tras la aprobación del paquete económico de 2010 que se discute en el Congreso, subrayó que las decisiones de Moody's son independientes.

"Para nosotros nuestras decisiones son absolutamente independientes, la mejor prueba de ello es que hace unas semanas afirmamos algo que ya veníamos diciendo, que la perspectiva era estable, a pesar de que otras personas puedan pensar diferente", aclaró.

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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Score One for Fair Trade

By Will Marshall and Jim Arkedis

Public support for free trade these days is not exactly robust, with the recession and the unrelenting erosion of U.S. manufacturing jobs. To a significant extent, Americans’ attitudes about trade and globalization depend on their confidence that the rules of world commerce are both fair and enforceable.

That’s why the World Trade Organization’s ruling late last week in a case involving Boeing and European arch-rival Airbus is a big and welcome victory that shows rule-based trade works.

In an interim decision, the WTO found that European governments have lavished Airbus with illegal production subsidies known as “launch aid.” This loan program gives Airbus a huge advantage in financing new airplanes that private companies like Boeing can’t match.

Unlike standard loans, which have to be repaid over some fixed period of time, launch aid is paid back through royalties on aircraft sales. This essentially means that Airbus doesn't have to repay loans on planes that don't sell. With such generous and forgiving bankers, it’s little wonder that Airbus overtook Boeing in 2003 as the world's largest aircraft supplier.

The WTO’s final decision isn’t expected for several months. Nonetheless, its initial ruling is a victory for Boeing, which says Airbus has reaped about $15 billion in launch aid from European governments. Although organized labor often has taken a skeptical if not hostile stance toward international trade, Boeing’s unions strongly backed the U.S. government’s decision to file the case in 2004. The unions realized that Boeing competitiveness was suffering and that only fair and enforceable trade rules would ensure it.

The panel’s decision also vindicates the internationalist vision of progressive U.S. leaders—Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton—who labored over a half century to construct a rules-based global trading system. It is that system, with its emphasis on openness, reciprocity and adherence to common rules, that keeps global competition from becoming a zero sum game.

The WTO is the system’s umpire. But while it can decide trade disputes on the merits, it has no power to enforce its rulings. That’s up to national governments. However, the WTO can authorize governments to impose retaliatory tariffs on countries that break the rules laid down by international treaties.

If the interim ruling holds, the United States could slap tariffs on European goods bound for America, pressuring Europe’s governments to give up Airbus’ launch aid. If you're wondering why the federal government doesn’t just tax Airbus' American exports, it wouldn’t be effective: Airbus sells only a fraction of its planes to American carriers. Washington wields better leverage by taxing lucrative European exports like wine and cheese, or luxury cars destined for our shores.

We hope it won’t come to that. The sensible thing would be for the Europeans to accept the WTO’s decision and bring Airbus into compliance with international trade rules. But the Europeans don’t seem to be giving up. As it happens, they have political, as well as economic, motives for shoveling subsidies to Airbus. Without the subsidies, Airbus could be forced to save money by cutting labor costs to make up for the loss of cheap capital. Many Europeans, spooked by rising competitive pressure from Asia, worry that Airbus might respond by shipping more production jobs overseas.

Consequently, the Europeans will likely appeal the WTO decision. Furthermore, they filed a counter-suit that alleges Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is heavily subsidized as well, though that decision shouldn't have any bearing on this one.

In any event, the WTO’s decision strikes an important blow for both open markets and global cooperation. For Americans, it affirms the principle that economic competition should not be distorted by heavy government loans and subsidies. For Europeans, it shows that global governance through international institutions like the WTO actually works, at least in the economic realm.

Finally, the ruling sets a healthy precedent for vigorous, unsubsidized competition, just as a host of other nations – China, Russia and Brazil – are casting a jealous eye on the world’s lucrative aerospace market.

So, for now, score one for trade that’s free and fair.

Marshall is the President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI); Arkedis directs the PPI’s Project on National Security and Foreign Policy.

Follow Jim Arkedis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gjark3

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Políticas y reformas por la creación de empleos.

http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2008_09_lehmanbye.jpg

Por: José Luis Alfaro
Felipe Calderón llegó a su tercer informe de gobierno con un país que presenta más problemas que soluciones: narcotráfico, inseguridad, la emergencia sanitaria por la influenza, sequía, y una profunda recesión económica que ha producido una falta de inversiones y desempleo.

El que fuese el "candidato del empleo" tiene en su periodo uno de los niveles de más alto desempleo (el anterior fue en 1995), pues en julio este indicador alcanzó  una tasa de 6.12% de la Población Económicamente Activa (PEA), con lo que cerca de 2.8 millones de personas se encontraron sin trabajo. Aunque ni el gobierno federal ni cualquier otro organismo podrían haber prevenido esto con demasiada anticipación, pues los ciclos económicos tienen sus tiempos, también es cierto que una política laboral más flexible y la competitividad que tiene el país pudieron actor a favor o en contra de lo que finalmente se presentó.
 
Este momento es ideal para evaluar que es lo que el gobierno puede mejorar sus políticas respecto a la generación de empleo. Y lo ha intentado.

Recientemente se puso a disposición la página www.tuempresa.gob.mx en donde se ofrece todos esos trámites que se tienen en México para iniciar una empresa. Con esta nueva herramienta los ciudadanos podrán crear su empresa en menos de dos horas, y alcanzando sólo el 50% del costo actual. Esta es una alentadora noticia pues países de América Latina como Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Perú han superado a México en temas de emprendimiento y creación de nuevas empresas, acorde con los resultados de la encuesta del Global Entrepeneurship Monitor (GEM) que desde 1997 mide la actividad emprendedora de varias naciones. Este mecanismo permitirá que los ciudadanos reporten sus obligaciones fiscales y se disminuya las actividades que están fuera de las normas. Claro está que depende del gobierno y de los mismos ciudadanos que haya más empresas registradas.

Por otra parte se ha hablado de una reforma profunda a nuestras leyes que permita la flexibilidad del mercado laboral. César Nava, presidente del Comité Ejecutivo Nacional del PAN ya lo ha puesto sobre la mesa (aunque es una reforma que lleva más de 10 años por llevarse a cabo).
El grado de flexibilidad laboral que hay en una economía, depende casi exclusivamente de las dificultades que una empresa tiene al momento de cancelar su contrato con el trabajador. Este  debate lo está ahora viviendo Chile y lo han puesto sobre la mesa los candidatos a Presidente, quien será elegido por un periodo de 5 años en el 2010. Se plantea que las empresas pueden destruir empleos cuando las cosas no andan bien, haciendo que la tasa de desempleo suba casi tan inmediato en cuanto aparecen las dificultades económicas para el país que las sufre. Sin embargo, también funciona cuando la situación ha mejorado, y eso permite la creación de empleos de forma más fácil.
 
Será interesante analizar como propone la bancada del PAN (el ala conservadora del espectro político mexicano) los cambios a este marco jurídico. Sobretodo cuando el PRI, el partido con mayor curules, y sus diputados que tienen sus raíces en la CTM se oponen a tal reforma pues dicen que "la iniciativa privada busca por todos los medios impulsar este proyecto con el argumento de que necesitan elevar la productividad y atraer inversiones, pero a costa de los salarios y prestaciones de la clase trabajadora."
 
México necesita ya de acciones concretas y trabajo en equipo; ya no se necesitan más estudios ni mesas de diálogos pues está claro que es lo el país requiere en el 2010, creación de empleos.

Bibliografía

Martínez, Rodrigo. "Tasa de Desempleo en México toca peor nivel en 14 años". IBT Mexico. 27 Aug. 2009 <http://www.ibtimes.com.mx/articles/20090827/tasa-desempleo-mexico-junio-julio.htm>.
 
Grupo, Reforma. "Reprueba México en Creación de empresas". Invertia Infosel. 27 Aug. 2009 <http://ve.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908251541_TRM_78333334&idtel=>. 
 
Chávez Ramírez, Irma. "Flexibilidad del mercado laboral". BUAP. 25 Aug. 2009 <www.aportes.buap.mx/17ap3.pdf>
 
Reuters, "Planteamientos de los candidatos presidenciales chilenos". Invertia Chile. 27 Aug. 2009 <http://cl.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908252141_RTI_1251236502nN25233715&idtel=>. 
 
Yañez, Sonia. "Consideraciones sobre flexibilidad laboral ." Centro de Estudios de la Mujer. 27 Aug. 2009 <www.cem.cl/pdf/flexibil_laboral.pdf>. 
 
"La cruzada por el nuevo Código del Trabajo” La Nacion.cl. 30 Aug. 2009 <http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias_v2/site/artic/20090829/pags/20090829195928.html>
 
"Reforma laboral no pasará este periodo: CTM." El Universal. 26 Aug. 2009 <www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/612196.html>.

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

US trade gap widens as trade flows recover

By Veronica Smit (AFP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The US trade deficit widened in July as trade volume rose and imports surged, government data showed Thursday in a fresh sign the economy is emerging from recession.

The Commerce Department reported the trade gap jumped to 32.0 billion dollars, from a revised 27.5 billion dollars in June and eclipsing the average analyst forecast of 27.4 billion dollars.

The trade shortfall was 16.3 percent higher than the previous month, the largest percentage increase in 10 years.

The report added to recent signs of a nascent recovery in the world's largest economy and around the world from the worst downturn in six decades.

"While wider trade deficits are normally not good news, in this case, the rise in demand for foreign consumer and business goods tells us the US economy is healing," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.

Christopher Cornell of Moody's Economy.com. agreed, saying the report confirmed the economy had "turned the corner" from recent sharp declines.

"The stage is set for recovery that we all hope will take flight in the coming months," he added.

The US trade gap had fallen in May to the lowest level since November 1999 as the global economic crisis strangled trade flows. In July, the trade deficit was 47 percent below the year-ago level.

Trade volume with the rest of the world reflected a burgeoning global recovery. After falling for nine consecutive months from August 2008 to April 2009, volume jumped 3.6 percent in July, accelerating from a 2.3 percent rise in June.

Imports vaulted 4.7 percent to 159.6 billion dollars, the highest monthly increase since the Commerce Department began publishing the data in 1992.

"The impressive import numbers, if they hold up, point to a pickup in US consumer spending," said Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital Markets.

Consumer spending -- which drives two-thirds of US economic activity -- rose slightly in July as financially stressed Americans struggle to cope with a deep recession that began in December 2007.

The world's largest economy shrank at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter after a steep 6.4 percent contraction in the first quarter. But recent data points to growth in the third quarter.

July imports rose in most categories, led by a 21.5 percent surge in imports of autos and parts.

Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said the government's popular cash-for-clunkers auto scrappage program accounted for nearly half the gain in imports.

"But the underlying trend in the deficit is still downwards," he said.

Imports of industrial supplies rose by 3.9 percent, consumer goods by 5.0 percent and capital goods by 4.5 percent. Food imports were the exception, falling 0.9 percent.

The politically sensitive trade deficit with China widened sharply, as imports increased by the strongest pace since November 2008, pushing the yawning gap to 20.4 billion dollars from 18.4 billion dollars in June.

Critics accuse China, the United States's second-largest trading partner after Canada, of manipulating its yuan currency to gain an unfair trade advantage.

Exports also rose in July, to 127.6 billion dollars, a 3.2 percent increase from June that was the strongest gain since May 2008 and due in part to a 2.4 percent rise in capital goods and a 24.5 percent jump in autos and parts.

The July oil deficit rose slightly, by 600 million dollars from June, to 17.9 billion dollars.

The average price of imported crude oil climbed for the fifth month running, to 62.48 dollars a barrel, a gain of 59 percent from February.

The trade deficit with Canada rose to 2.2 billion dollars from 1.5 billion dollars in June and that with the 27-nation European Union vaulted to 8.0 billion dollars from 4.5 billion dollars.

With Japan, the deficit rose to 3.9 billion dollars from 3.7 billion dollars.

The deficit with Mexico, by contrast, shrank to 2.9 billion dollars from 3.4 billion dollars.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Return of Corporate Dealmaking Activity

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-EK261_roi99_G_20090908172241.jpg
Published: September 7, 2009

Kraft Foods’ hostile bid for Cadbury on Monday was only the latest potential blockbuster deal in recent days. In the last week, several multibillion-dollar deals have been announced, including those involving prominent companies like Walt Disney and eBay.

Yet many of the bankers and lawyers who piece these mergers together, well versed in reading economic tea leaves for signs of an industry’s health, caution that deal-making is likely to rise only in fits and starts for now.

“The clouds have broken a little bit, and there’s a little bit of sunshine,” said Douglas L. Braunstein, the head of investment banking for JPMorgan Chase. “But it’s too early to say the storm’s over.”

Deal activity remains far below the giddy heights of only a few years ago. About $1.32 trillion worth of deals have been announced this year through Monday, according to data from Thomson Reuters. That figure is down 37 percent from the same point last year and 56 percent from 2007. (It also includes deals that have yet to close.)

In fact, until last week, August shaped up to be the slowest month for deals since 1994, according to Thomson Reuters. Now, it is just the slowest month since last November.

Still, there was hope that Merger Monday — so called because of companies’ tendencies to announce deals at the beginning of the week — seemed to be back in full force last week. Its presence had largely disappeared since the onset of the financial crisis.

Since the beginning of the year, the conditions that foster deal-making activity have largely improved. The stock markets have rallied, helping to establish a perceived floor for share prices. The broad economic recovery has inspired confidence in corporate boards that the worst is over.

Many of the announced deals through Monday, including Kraft’s offer, Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment and eBay’s sale of a majority stake in its Skype unit, also involved different types of activity, from hostile bids to corporate mergers to private equity transactions.

“We see this as the beginning of the next upturn,” said Roger C. Altman, the chairman of Evercore Partners, the boutique investment bank. He added that in his view, upturns tended to last five to seven years, while downturns, like the one that began in the second half of 2007, last on average about two to three years.

And management teams have regained confidence in pursuing targets they have eyed for some time. That has even meant hostile bids, like PepsiCo’s pursuit of its two largest North American bottlers, which the company completed last month. For many buyers, Mr. Braunstein said, the fundamental question is not whether deal-making is possible, but this: should I be doing something in this environment?

“It was just a matter of time before buyers returned,” said Boon Sim, Credit Suisse’s head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas. “The general thinking seems to be, if you do not do something now, prices will be higher 12 to 18 months from now. So why wait?”

Just as crucial for deal-making, banks have slowly become willing to open up their wallets to finance transactions for a broad range of companies, beyond blue-chip acquirers like Pfizer and Disney. Several merger advisers pointed to the acquisition of Skype and the sale of Procter & Gamble’s prescription drugs business to Warner Chilcott as signs that bankers and other financiers were willing to back riskier deals, involving borrowed money from companies with less-than-sterling credit ratings.

Bankers and lawyers agree that the financing markets will most likely never return to the frothy heights of the credit boom in 2007, which enabled private equity firms to borrow liberally and often outbid corporate rivals. The ensuing financial fallout has left many companies with debt they are hard-pressed to pay, forcing some to seek bankruptcy protection.

But even the troubled deals of yesterday have led to opportunities for companies and private equity firms, which are snatching up targets out of Chapter 11. The number of bankruptcy-related mergers and acquisitions has risen to 241 this year through August, a 65 percent increase over the same time in 2008, according to Thomson Reuters data.

For months, the lack of financing has hurt private equity firms’ stock-in-trade of buying companies. Even now, many of these firms have been forced to borrow less to strike their deals, cutting into their returns, according to Richard E. Climan, a partner at the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf who worked on the Skype deal.

While merger activity has risen over the last 30 years, the path back to a healthier deal-making industry is likely to be a slow one over the next several months, advisers say. What lies in store is mostly expected to be more of what has transpired this year: opportunistic purchases by corporations with healthy credit ratings, stock values and cash.

“There will be more deals next year versus this year,” Mr. Sim, of Credit Suisse, said. “But I don’t think the floodgates are going to open until the fundamentals improve materially.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/business/economy/08merger.html?_r=1&ref=business

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Monday, September 7, 2009

Grandes contrastes en el impacto de la crisis en economías emergentes

http://www.hansagcr.com/specialities/emerging_markets.jpg

Por Andrés Vernon

Al igual que en los países industrializados, el impacto de la crisis económica global en las economías emergentes ha sido sumamente desigual.

China y la India han logrado mantener un crecimiento positivo, mientras que otros, como México, presentan caídas sin precedente en su actividad económica.

En el caso de China, la encuesta de The Economist pronostica un nivel de crecimiento de 8.1 por ciento este año, que si bien es considerablemente menor al promedio de dos dígitos en años recientes, es un buen resultado a todas luces.

Esto en buena medida debido a un estímulo fiscal superior a 3.0 por ciento este año, que logró contrarrestar la baja en exportaciones.

Por su parte, la India tiene un crecimiento esperado de 5.5 por ciento para este año, según los pronósticos de los especialistas. En su caso, la relativamente baja participación de las exportaciones en su economía (20.4 por ciento del PIB) y el hecho que los servicios representan el 38 por ciento de sus ventas al exterior explican parte de su éxito.

Aunque son los casos más destacados, en Asia no son los únicos. Potencias emergentes, aunque con un bajo nivel general de ingreso, como Indonesia (alza pronosticada en PIB de 4.1 por ciento en 2009) y Vietnam (un incremento de 4.2 por ciento) resultarán relativamente poco afectadas, en parte por el todavía importante peso del sector agrícola, que es siempre el menos dañado en recesiones.

Otros países con notable orientación agrícola, como Brasil (un caída de 1.0 por ciento) y Argentina (con un descenso de 3.5 por ciento) de mayor nivel de desarrollo, registran mejores resultados que otras naciones de su región.

Los países más golpeados son precisamente aquellos que tienen una amplia dependencia en las exportaciones de bienes duraderos (como automóviles y aparatos de línea blanca), así como finanzas públicas frágiles que impiden el uso masivo de estímulos fiscales y monetarios.

México es un caso típico en este grupo. Si bien la caída en el Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) fue más moderada en el segundo trimestre (-4.4 por ciento en términos reales anualizados respecto al trimestre previo), el volumen de producción se ubicó 10.3 por ciento por debajo del mismo periodo de 2008.

Incluso con la recuperación esperada en los últimos dos trimestres de este año, la más reciente estimación del Fondo Monetario Internacional apunta a una contracción de 7.1 por ciento para todo 2009.

Otros países con un perfil similar incluyen a Eslovaquia y Hungría en Europa Oriental, cuyas economías cayeron en el segundo trimestre 5.43 y 7.6 por ciento, respectivamente, con relación al mismo trimestre de 2008.

Por su parte, el PIB de Turquía cayó 13.8 por ciento en el primer trimestre con base anual. En general, se espera que estos países presenten caídas en 2009 ligeramente menores que las de nuestro país.

Tanto en México como en estas naciones el estímulo monetario ha sido limitado por inflaciones que rebasan (ligeramente) el 5.0 por ciento anual.

A su vez, las economías recientemente industrializadas asiáticas han sido afectadas en grado similar. Tanto Taiwán como Singapur tendrán un crecimiento negativo superior a 5.0 por ciento este año, según pronósticos de los analistas, mientras que Corea del Sur caerá 1.8 por ciento.

Sin embargo, en el segundo trimestre la producción en Singapur y Corea registró un repunte notable anualizado de 20.7 y 9.7 por ciento, respectivamente, en relación con el trimestre previo.

Hasta ahora, el único factor positivo en este grupo de países ha sido la ausencia de una crisis financiera. Los países bálticos, que presentaron importantes burbujas crediticias en años recientes, muestran el daño que pueden causar dos crisis simultáneas.

La encuesta de The Economist señala que las economías de Lituania, Latvia y Estonia presentarán caídas de 15, 17 y 13 por ciento este año.

Por su parte, los países exportadores de materias primas también han resentido la crisis debido a su impacto en los precios de estos productos. El caso más notable es Rusia, cuya economía cayó 10.2 por ciento en el segundo trimestre respecto al mismo periodo de 2008. Otros países con saldo negativo, aunque más moderado, incluyen a Venezuela, Chile, Perú y Sudáfrica.

En el otro extremo, muchas economías asiáticas han logrado sobrellevar los eventos debido a factores como la inercia de alto crecimiento, bajos vínculos comerciales con la economía mundial y fuertes paquetes de estímulo fiscal.
(Con información de El Financiero/GCE/APB) http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/ElFinanciero/Portal/cfpages/category.cfm?nodeid=5

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Crisis having dramatic impact on developing countries; millennium development deadline at risk.

Contribution of Migrants to Development

Excessive deregulation and risk taking are at origin of financial turmoil -- huge income losses and greater poverty are the consequences, says new UNCTAD report

Geneva, 7 September 2009 -- Since September 2008 the financial crisis has turned into a full-fledged recession affecting virtually all markets and countries, either through direct financial contagion or through falling export earnings and lower migrants´ remittances. As a result, the world economy is experiencing its first contraction since the Second World War, with attendant effects on employment in all countries. The contraction now makes it virtually impossible to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015, says UNCTAD´s Trade and Development Report 2009 (TDR)

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

WTO's Lamy says crisis barriers hurting trade

By Jonathan Lynn

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation must remain vigilant about protectionism as job losses continue to mount in the wake of the global crisis, Director-General Pascal Lamy said on Thursday.

Many countries had raised trade barriers -- mostly legal under WTO rules -- to counter the crisis, Lamy said before a meeting of trade ministers to advance the WTO's Doha round.

"None of them has triggered so far a tit-for-tat chain of retaliations, but there is no denying the fact that they have some kind of trade-chilling effect," he told India's main business lobby FICCI.

Lamy said completing the Doha round would be an effective measure to tackle the crisis and prevent protectionism, adding that the talks, now in their eighth year, had entered the "beginning of the end-game".

The meeting, called by India, had to draw up a clear road map for the Doha talks and provide direction to officials negotiating the details in Geneva to realise repeated pledges of political leaders to complete the deal in 2010, he said.

"Given the sort of 2010 deadline which leaders have given us... given what's happening and not happening in the Geneva kitchen, we need a stronger linkage between what the dining room says and what the kitchen does," he said.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said the Delhi meeting would not negotiate specific issues but tackle the mismatch between words and action.

"Let's be frank in acknowledging that even the unequivocal expression of political resolve has not yet been translated into action. Many of you have shared your concerns with me over the imperceptible progress in re-energising the negotiations," he told ministers in a welcome address.

European Union Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said it was realistic to aim to reach a deal by the end of 2010.

But she said the EU opposed efforts to reopen the agriculture package as it now stands, following an ultimately abortive meeting of ministers in July 2008 and subsequent revised negotiating draft.

"I think that would be a very, very risky business if someone should be tempted to try and reopen... I can guarantee that from the European Union there's no more juice to get out of this lemon," she told Reuters in an interview.

Lamy said trade was a victim not a cause of the crisis, and recalled that the WTO now expects trade volumes to contract 10 percent this year under the impact of shrinking demand in the crisis, protectionist measures and lack of trade finance.

But trade is a motor of development, said Lamy, a French socialist who was previously European Union trade commissioner.

Mindful of his presence in New Delhi -- itself undergoing rapid modernisation as a result of India's economic growth and great-power ambitions -- Lamy recalled that trade expansion over the past five years had created 14 million jobs in India.

DEADLINES MISSED

The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to help poor countries prosper through more trade, but has missed deadline after self-imposed deadline since then as rich and poor countries and exporters and importers squabble over details.

Ministers came near to a breakthrough in July last year but the talks have made little substantive progress since they collapsed amid rancour between the United States and India.

But Lamy said it was an oversimplification to see one of the issues behind the collapse -- a safeguard for developing countries to block a flood of food imports temporarily to help poor farmers -- as a clash between India and the United States.

"It's not a north-south issue," he said, pointing out that developing country food exporters such as Thailand and Paraguay had been alarmed by the safeguard proposals laid out by less competitive agricultural states such as India and Indonesia.

As he spoke, 700-1,000 farmers marched in protest outside the FICCI building. "Save farmers, save farms" read one placard.

"This WTO is a monster. We will be finished. The government should do something," Het Ram, a farmer aged 48, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Surojit Gupta)

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