Articles

Key View: We hold a positive outlook for Croatia's consumer activity over 2024, with support for spending and confidence coming from a strengthening economic backdrop, easing inflation and jobs and earnings growth. Consumer confidence has been improving steadily over the last few months of 2023 and with inflation easing over the same period

Latest Development: In a significant shift in regulatory approach, the FDA is urging Congress to eliminate the interchangeability designation that has long differentiated biosimilars in the US market. This proposed legislative change is set to resolve the confusion stemming from a two-tier system that has inadvertently created misconceptions

Key View

• The limited nature of Israel’s retaliation against Iran on April 18/19, and Iran’s muted response, suggest that both sides are seeking to de-escalate tensions, which is now the likeliest scenario.
• Indeed, the reaction in oil markets was muted, and oil price futures are already declining. If Israel and Iran remain on this de

Key View 

• Alvotech will be the global frontrunner for ustekinumab biosimilars following its latest approval of Selarsdi in the US.  
• Johnson & Johnson will delay new entrants with ongoing patent litigation settlements, although the 2024 and 2025 patent cliffs are quickly approaching.  
• Stelara revenue will be impacted immediately

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

Latest Development: Smart Communications (Smart), a subsidiary of incumbent, Philippines-based operator PLDT, has initiated a campaign to boost eSIM adoption among prepaid customers, offering current Smart subscribers an upgrade to eSIM for PHP99 (USD1.75) while retaining their number, and providing non-Smart users the option to switch to Smart

Key View

• If our Country Risk team’s most likely scenario of an ANC coalition with smaller parties were to materialise, this would result in policy continuity in the agriculture sector, albeit potentially at a slower pace. The most relevant policies for the agricultural sector relate to loadshedding, port efficiency and land redistribution.

Latest Development: Norway is set to introduce regulations targeting data centres, particularly to curb energy-intensive crypto mining operations, to prevent electricity disruptions affecting heating systems and to reduce environmental damage from carbon emissions. The proposal is indicative of a wider regulatory stance, primarily across

Latest Development: Viettel and Singtel are partnering to deploy the first subsea cable to directly connect Vietnam and Singapore. The new cable would enhance Vietnam’s international bandwidth capacity, which will be key in achieving its goal of becoming an alternative data centre hub within the east Asian region. The project also aligns with

Key View

• We anticipate a mixed performance for the major Sub-Saharan African currencies in 2024, though the majority will perform better than they did in 2023.
• Both the Ghanaian cedi and Nigerian naira will pare back some losses over the coming quarters, while the Kenyan shilling and Zambian kwacha will also perform fairly well in 2024