Economies
Macro trends, growth models and economic policy across countries
Planet BRICS: How the 2024 Enlargement Rewired the Bloc's Economics — and Drew a Dollar Ultimatum
In 2024 BRICS nearly doubled as Egypt, Iran, the UAE and Ethiopia joined, the Kazan summit agreed a partner-country track, and the enlarged bloc reached 28.1% of world GDP, 43% of oil output and 72.5% of rare-earth reserves — before Donald Trump's 100-percent tariff ultimatum put de-dollarisation on a collision course with Washington.
Surprise Acceleration: India's GDP Grows 7.8% in the June Quarter, a Five-Quarter High
India's GDP grew 7.8% in April-June 2025, a five-quarter high that beat the 6.7% median forecast, as capex, services and farming led - with tariffs looming
Four Futures to 2029: Inside the Bank of Russia's Scenario Map for Rates, Inflation and Growth
The Bank of Russia's draft monetary policy guidelines for 2027–2029 set out four futures for the economy — from a supply-led boom to an AI-triggered global crisis. Economists say the gap between the baseline and the pro-inflationary scenario has never been narrower.
The Chainsaw's First Year: How Milei's Shock Therapy Cooled Argentina's Inflation — and Pushed Poverty Past 53%
One year into Javier Milei's presidency, Argentina carries two contradictory balance sheets: monthly inflation down from 26% to 2.7% and a 3.9% quarterly GDP rebound out of recession, against poverty of almost 53% in H1 2024 — a two-decade high — with pensions (24.2% of cuts) and public works (23.6%) absorbing nearly half the chainsaw. A deep dive into the anatomy of the fiscal shock, its household transmission channels, the slow mathematics of poverty recovery (49.9% in Q4), and why about half the country still backs the chainsaw.
Russia Lifts 2026 GDP Growth Forecast to 0.6% and Keeps Path to 2.4% by 2029
Russia lifts its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 0.6% from 0.4% and keeps a reacceleration path to 2.4% by 2029, with inflation seen back at 4% in 2027
Saritas Launches an Integrated Stainless Steel Investment in Yalova: 800,000 Tons a Year and 1,200 Jobs by 2030
Turkish stainless steel producer Saritas Celik Sanayi has launched a major investment in an integrated facility in the Machinery Specialized OSB in Yalova, western Türkiye. The four-phase project reaches full capacity in 2030 with 800,000 tons of annual output and 1,200 jobs; the first two cold-rolling phases are slated for 2027 with 400,000 tons and 500 jobs. The plant integrates melting, hot and cold rolling with energy-efficiency and recycling targets and complements the company's existing 750,000-ton Gebze processing center.
France's €3.3 Trillion Reckoning: Bond Vigilantes, the Fall of the Bayrou Government and Europe's Fiscal Test
On September 8, 2025 France's National Assembly toppled François Bayrou's government over a €43.8 billion austerity plan meant to bend the deficit from 5.4% of GDP toward 4.6%. This deep dive reconstructs the €3.3 trillion debt build-up, the anatomy of the squeeze, the bond-vigilante verdict that pushed OAT-Bund spreads past 80 basis points and Fitch into a downgrade, the contagion debate with Britain, and the five scenarios that will decide whether France becomes the eurozone's next sovereign stress story.
Russia's Consumer Engine at a Turning Point: How Household Spending Drove 2025 Growth and Why It Is Cooling
In 2025 Russia's economy grew by just 1%, and household consumption — contributing 1.7 of that single percentage point while investment and net trade subtracted — was almost the only engine left. This deep dive traces how the consumer basket was reshaped (food to the fore, durables saturated, services and catering leading), why the engine began to cool from mid-2025 (tighter retail credit, higher saving, marketplace fatigue, exhausted deferred demand), and what the wage picture, the structural split between growing and contracting industries, the demographic tide and the early-2026 data signal for the year ahead.
Slower but Real: Russian Wages Add 5.1% in June as First-Half Growth Cools to 4.1%
Rosstat: real wages in Russia rose 5.1% y/y in June 2025, a spring high; the H1 gain of 4.1% trails 2024's 9.7% as nominal pay reaches 103,183 roubles
Rosseti's 2025 Investment Program for Distribution and Trunk Grids to Reach Around 700 Billion Rubles
On September 9, 2025, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Rosseti CEO Andrei Ryumin told Interfax that the company's 2025 investment program for the distribution and trunk systems will amount to around 700 billion rubles, with funding sources in place; the program was revised from an initial 760 billion rubles because of high interest rates, yet is still expected to exceed the 2024 level and preserve the five-year trend of investment growth.
Russia Adopts Its Three-Year Budget: 40.3 Trillion Roubles of Revenue in 2025 as Oil's Share Is Set to Shrink
Russia's State Duma adopted the 2025-2027 federal budget: 40.3 trn roubles of revenue in 2025, a 0.5% GDP deficit and oil's share falling to 3.9% by 2027.
Consensus Cools: Analysts Cut Russia's 2025 Inflation Forecast to 6.3% and Growth to 0.9%
The Central Bank's December survey of 30 economists cut Russia's 2025 inflation forecast to 6.3% and GDP growth to 0.9%, with the key rate seen at 19.2%
Carney’s Two-Front Gamble: Canada’s Trade Pivot Away From the U.S. — and the Limits of Defying Trump
After 50% U.S. tariffs on $28 billion of exports, Mark Carney is fighting on two fronts: retaliating ahead of the U.S. midterms while courting the EU, India and Mercosur. With two-thirds of exports and US$870 billion of annual trade tied to America, CETA still unratified after a decade and a UK benchmark of just 0.3% of GDP by 2040, Canada’s pivot is a race between record political will and the arithmetic of dependence.
SIBUR Nearly Doubles Its 2024 Investment Programme to 440 Billion Rubles
On December 27, 2024, SIBUR CEO Mikhail Karisalov said the company's 2024 investments exceeded the plan and reached 440 billion rubles, almost double the 2023 level, while the initial budget assumed a 1.7-1.8 times increase. He described the high key rate as manageable for SIBUR today but a possible future constraint on consumer sectors, noted 6% average annual growth of the Russian polymer industry over five years, 75%-76% domestic revenue share, exports to the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, and a goal to place the company in the middle of the global top ten synthetic materials producers with capacity doubling versus 2021.
Russia's 2024 Tax Reform Explained: 25% Profit Tax, Five-Tier Income Scale and VAT for the Simplified Regime
In July 2024 Russia passed its biggest tax overhaul in two decades: from January 1, 2025 the corporate profit tax rises from 20% to 25%, personal income tax becomes a five-tier progressive scale up to 22%, and simplified-regime small businesses enter VAT for the first time. This deep dive unpacks who pays what, why a chronically deficit budget forced the moment, and whether capped investment offsets can keep the reform growth-friendly.
ADNOC Launches Industrial Resilience Programme Backed by Dh200 Billion in 2026–2028 Contracts to Put UAE-Made Products First
On May 5, 2026, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) launched the Industrial Resilience Programme at the Make it in the Emirates forum, requiring its EPC contractors to prioritise locally manufactured products across its project pipeline. The programme is backed by Dh200 billion ($55 billion) in contract awards set aside for 2026–2028 — the first major tranche of the $150 billion five-year capex plan approved in November 2025 — and builds on the ICV initiative that has generated Dh80 billion in local manufacturing agreements since 2022.
Ma'aden and Aramco to Form a Joint Venture Exploring Copper and Transition Minerals Across 10% of Saudi Arabia
On Aug 18, 2026, Saudi Aramco and Ma'aden agreed to establish a joint venture — 51 percent Ma'aden, 49 percent Aramco — to explore copper and other minerals critical to the energy transition in Zone-4 (the Transition Zone) of the Arabian Platform, an area of about 182,000 sq. kilometers, nearly 10 percent of Saudi Arabia's total land area; the project combines Aramco's 90 years of geological data with Ma'aden's exploration expertise and supports the Vision 2030 goal of lifting mining's contribution to GDP to SR240 billion.
BYD Signs $1 Billion Deal to Build 150,000-Unit EV Plant and R&D Center in Türkiye
The world's largest electric vehicle producer agreed with Türkiye's Industry and Technology Ministry to build a 150,000-unit-a-year plant and a mobility and R&D center, creating 5,000 direct jobs, with production targeted for the end of 2026.
EBRD Cuts Its 2026 Growth Forecast to 2.5% as Iraq Slides Into a Deep Recession
The EBRD cut its 2026 growth forecast for its regions by 0.6 pp to 2.5% on Iraq's deep recession and tighter finance; 2027 is still seen rebounding to 4%
Below Target at Last: UK Inflation Falls to 1.7%, a Three-and-a-Half-Year Low Ahead of the Budget
UK CPI slowed to 1.7% in September 2024 - below the 2% target for the first time since April 2021 - putting a November Bank of England rate cut in sight
Rosneft Expands Vostok Oil Perimeter to 60 Licensed Areas as Resource Base Reaches 7 Billion Tonnes
On March 20, 2025, Interfax reported that Rosneft had expanded the perimeter of its Vostok Oil project on the Taymyr Peninsula from 52 to 60 licensed areas in 2024, raising the resource base to 7 billion tonnes of oil under the Russian classification. Production at the new Arctic oil province may reach 100 million tonnes per year, with the first phase scheduled for 2026.
Rosatom Pours First Concrete at Unit 4 of Egypt's El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant
Russia's Rosatom poured first concrete for the fourth power unit of Egypt's El Dabaa nuclear power plant on 23 January 2024, placing all four VVER-1200 units of the country's first nuclear station under construction, with completion expected in 2028–2029.
Spain, the Eurozone's Growth Outlier of 2024: Three Engines Behind the 3.4% — and the Limits Economists See
In the third quarter of 2024 Spain's economy grew 3.4% year-on-year while the eurozone managed 0.9%: the debt-crisis patient of the 2010s became the bloc's growth engine. Euronews' analysis, drawing on Eurostat and INE data and economists from ING, BBVA Research, Oxford Economics, IE University and Universidad Carlos III Madrid, traces the three engines — record tourism, an immigration-fuelled labour market that pushed unemployment to 11.21%, its lowest since 2008, and €163bn of Next Generation EU money — and the caveats on each: a moderating travel boom, stagnant productivity per worker, headline GDP far outpacing GDP per capita, and net exports expected to turn negative in 2025.
Türkiye's Economy Cools to 2.1% Growth in the Third Quarter of 2024
Türkiye's GDP grew 2.1% y/y in Q3 2024, below the 2.6% Anadolu survey forecast, as current-price output reached 11.89 trillion lira ($357.99 billion).
The Wheat Pivot: How Russia's 53-Million-Tonne Grain Season Redrew Its Export Map
Russia's 2024/25 grain season ends at about 53 million tonnes of exports — the fourth-highest result on record — yet with wheat leadership intact for a fifth year. In an Interfax exclusive interview, union chairman Dmitry Sergeyev explains the twin squeeze of halved Turkish and Iranian demand and a strengthening rouble, the consolidation of exporters, the pivot to Africa and the Middle East, the BRICS grain exchange bet and the Novorossiysk build-out behind the 2030 export targets.
Russia's Annual Inflation Accelerates to 6.33% in August Despite Monthly Deflation
Rosstat: Russia's annual inflation accelerated to 6.33% in August 2026 from 5.98% in July despite 0.08% monthly deflation; gasoline is up 24.6% year to date
RZD changes return fees for tickets purchased from December
RZD changes return fees for tickets purchased from December