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The Latest: On May 15 2024, the Polish retailer Zabka, the largest convenience store chain in Poland, opened a store in Romania, its first outside of Poland. This expansion follows the announcement in December 2023 of a majority stake purchase of DRIM Daniel Distributie, a local distribution company of consumer goods, which was given regulatory

Please Note: BMI is enhancing its risk analysis with a new scoring system following its acquisition of GeoQuant, a market-leading provider of political risk data. From March 27 2024, risk scores are inverted: zero now represents the lowest risk and 100 represents the highest risk. This allows for clearer, industry-standard assessments. For further

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• On May 22, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that a UK general election will be held on July 4.
• This date is much earlier than most expected. Sunak may be attempting to take advantage of a pickup in economic activity and confirmation that inflation has fallen to 2.3% y-o-y (in April) to encourage a feelgood factor heading into the vote.
• We

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• Ongoing drugmaker investment will boost Singapore’s status as a key pharmaceutical hub.
• The government of Singapore will continue to take a proactive role in developing the market’s biomedical manufacturing industry. 
• Through AstraZeneca’s investment, Singapore's position as an important trading hub for the pharmaceutical sector in the

In Sub-Saharan Africa, e-commerce is adapting to low bank account ownership by integrating mobile money and hybrid payment systems. With only 3% credit card and 24% debit card ownership in 2021, services like Safaricom’s M-Pesa and MTN's MoMo are pivotal, offering mobile money accounts to all consumer groups. Hybrid payment systems combine online

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• We forecast that Tanzania’s real GDP growth will accelerate from 5.1% in 2023 to 5.4% in 2024, after the Q4 2023 growth print came in at 4.6%, from 5.3% in Q3 2024. 
• Tanzania’s improving investment environment will continue to encourage greater private sector credit demand and investment. Meanwhile, the government has signalled that public

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• Canada’s medical devices market is set to expand faster than the wider economy due to an expansive government federal budget and a renewed commitment to investing in Canada's healthcare system. 
• Canada will remain reliant upon medical device imports for the mid-term while it continues to implement its Biomanufacturing and Life Science

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• In line with USDA projections, we forecast that Cambodia’s domestic rice production surplus will climb to a record 2.84mn tonnes in the MY2024/25 (Jan-Dec) season. Output is expected to increase to an all-time high of 7.40mn tonnes while consumption is seen rising to 4.56mn tonnes. Since MY2015/16, Cambodia has by some margin achieved the

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• In line with our Global team’s view of the Fed’s monetary policy, we think that the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) will gradually cut the base rate to 4.65% by end-2024 starting in July. Risks of delayed rate cuts are high.
• Stubbornly robust increase in rent prices prompted us to revise up our 2024 forecast for Dubai’s average inflation

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• We anticipate that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) will lower the policy rate by 50 basis points (bps) in 2024, starting in Q424. 
• Inflationary pressures are showing signs of easing. However, we believe the RBNZ will want to see inflation closer to its 1.0-3.0% target before starting its loosening cycle.
• The risks to our policy rate