EM local bonds stayed strong despite choppy markets, as UK/German policy stayed on a consolidation/investment path. India and South Korea surprised with strong growth, while EM sovereigns like Zambia and Qatar saw rating support.
The finance ministers of 16 African countries requested a 2 year suspension of payments to debt owed to International Financial Institutions (IFIs), but said debt relief should not be conditional upon suspension of payments on Eurobonds.
The recently launched G20 initiative to provide debt relief for poorer Emerging Markets (EM) countries may be well-meaning, but it is also seriously misguided. In particular, the proposal fails on two counts.
As of 27 April 2020, eighteen times more people have died from coronavirus per million of population in developed countries (DMs) than in Emerging Markets (EM).
The tendency for global capital to flee ‘risky’ EM countries indiscriminately in favour of ‘risk free’ developed markets during outbreaks of global risk aversion is one of the great international market failures of our time.
The Reinhart-Rogoff proposal - In a recent article in Project Syndicate, prominent academics Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff put forward a proposal for a moratorium on Emerging Markets (EM) external debt...
Ecuador has put forward a plan for dealing with an unprecedented triple shock of lower oil prices, coronavirus and loss of access to financial markets.
Global stock markets have been struck by a triple shock; global pandemic, energy price war and market rout from full valuation levels in developed markets.