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• We have revised up our forecast for the UAE’s 2024 current account surplus from 10.8% of GDP previously to 11.8% of GDP, despite the extension of OPEC+ supply cuts, as we become more upbeat about services exports.
• In 2025, we now expect larger surplus of 11.0% of GDP against 10.4% previously due to a more pronounced increase in hydrocarbon

The Latest: On May 24 2024, the Spain-based hospitality company Atzaro Group announced its plans to launch a new hotel in Cape Town, South Africa in June 2024. The Atzaro Cape Town hotel will offer seven luxury suites, as well as guided activities including hiking, whale-watching and mountain biking. The hotel will also offer excursions such as

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

Latest Development: On June 2, as widely expected, the governing MORENA party’s Claudia Sheinbaum was the comfortable victor of Mexico’s presidential elections, and as a result will become Mexico’s first female president on October 1. Preliminary polling – the official count does not begin until June 5 – indicates that Sheinbaum won at least 58.0%

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• TotalEnergies' FID on the Kaminho Project reaffirms Angola's appeal as an attractive destination for upstream investment.
• The long-term outlook remains dour due to the natural decline at existing fields and the limited exploration success necessary to drive the next wave of offshore developments.
• Additional greenfield oil developments are

Key View: The planned reduction in subsidies in Egypt, including a significant increase in bread, fuel, and electricity prices, will raise month-on-month inflation and push inflation up to around 30% in 2024 and 18%-20% in 2025, which will weigh on disposable incomes of the Egyptian consumer. This reduction in disposable income is expected to

Latest Development: SpaceX is set to launch its direct-to-cell (D2C) service with T-Mobile in the US in Q324, connecting T-Mobile's subscribers to Starlink satellites. The announcement is significant particularly as rival AST SpaceMobile has also inked agreements with AT&T and Verizon to deliver D2C services from its satellites. Furthermore, SpaceX

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• We expect Jordan's real GDP growth to slow from 2.6% in 2023 to 2.4% in 2024, mainly due to Houthi attacks disrupting exports and the nearby Israel-Hamas conflict deterring investment.
• Tight monetary policy, in particular in 2023 and in H1 2024, will dampen private consumption growth, while government consumption will grow more moderately

Key View

• Economic growth slowed according to both GDP and GVA data for Q1 2024 and we continue to forecast a 7.0% rise in GDP for FY2024/25 (April - March).
• We are seeing some improvement in the private consumption outlook, as falling inflation supports real wage growth.
• By contrast, we now expect investment growth to slow due to high interest rates.

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The Latest: On May 28 2024, the Irish fast fashion retailer, Primark, opened its first store in Hungary after announcing plans in 2019 to expand in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This store opening marks Primark's 17th international market and makes Hungary its sixth market in the CEE region.

Implications: Known for its competitive prices