• The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday slashed this year's economic growth forecast for Asia and warned that a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections, supply chain disruptions and inflation pressures pose downside risks to the outlook. 
• In its regional outlook report, the IMF cut this year's economic growth forecast for Asia to 6.5%, down 1.1 percentage point from its projection made in April, as a spike in Delta variant cases hit consumption and factory output. However, it raised the growth forecast for 2022 to 5.7% from 5.3%. 
• "Although Asia and Pacific remains the fastest growing region in the world, the divergence between Asian advanced economies and developing economies is deepening," the report said. 
• "Risks are tilted to the downside," mainly on uncertainty over the pandemic, supply chain disruptions and potential spillovers from U.S. policy normalization.  

(Source: Reuters)

• Reuters claims, based on a draft document, that the World Health Organization has a programme to ensure poorer countries get fair access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments which includes antiviral drugs for patients with mild symptoms for as little as $10. 
• Merck & Co's experimental pill molnupiravir is likely to be one of the drugs, and other drugs to treat mild symptoms are being developed. 
• The document says that the programme wants to deliver about 1 billion COVID-19 tests to poorer nations, and procure drugs to treat up to 120 million patients globally, out of about 200 million new cases it estimates in the next 12 months. 
• The plans highlight how the WHO wants to shore up supplies of drugs and tests at a relatively low price after losing the vaccine race to wealthy nations which scooped up a huge share of the world's supplies, leaving the world's poorest countries with few shots. 
• An improvement in the inoculation rates would reduce deaths, hospitalisations, the pandemic’s impact on the health care system, and, foster a faster recovery rate for these poorer economies.

(Source: Reuters & NCBCM Research Team)

• Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says Jamaica has welcomed a total of 1.29Mn visitors since the reopening of the country’s borders in June 2020, with estimated earnings of US$1.70Bn. 
• These figures, which account for arrivals up to September 2021, comprise approximately 1,276,987 stopover visitors and 8,381 cruise passengers. This puts the country on track to reach the forecast for 2021, which is for 1.57Mn visitors and more than US$2.0Bn in earnings. 
• However, the forecast for 2021 is still below the visitors in 2019 of 4,233,266 but above the arrivals for 2020 of 1,329,675. Notably, stopover arrivals and cruise arrivals in 2019 were 2,680,920 and 1,552,346 respectively, while for 2020 they were 880,404 and 449,271. 
• Meanwhile, the Tourism Minister said that the cruise industry should be fully back on track by December with projections for approximately 300,000 cruise passengers by year end. The return of cruise shipping signals the second critical phase of the reopening of the tourism industry and will aid greatly in bringing back much-needed jobs.

(Source: JIS News)

• Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, has said that the Ministry of Health and Wellness is aiming to have 30.0% to 40.0% of Jamaica’s population receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine before the Christmas holiday. This will help to prevent an increase in hospitalisations, as more persons will be inclined to travel and do much shopping for holiday preparations.
• To date, the Ministry has reported that the number of cases, deaths and hospitalisations are decreasing; however, the current number of cases still significantly impacts hospital services. As it stands, Jamaica needs to bring its cases down to less than 200 cases to be in the safe zone, where providing health care to persons infected withCOVID-19 won’t severely impact the rest of the activities in the hospitals. 
• Meanwhile, Dr. Bisasor-McKenzie noted that 80,000 of 120,000 persons who received the jab in August 2021 are due for their second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In total, 7.5% of the population are currently partly vaccinated, while 11.4% are fully vaccinated. Greater vaccination will help to reduce the deaths and hospitalisations and the pandemic’s impact on health services. 
• If the government is able to achieve its target, it would put it in a position to relax containment measures, which would increase commercial activity and result in a faster rebound in economic activity.

(Source: JIS News & NCBCM Research)

• On October 15, 2021, Fitch Ratings downgraded Peru's Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'BBB' from 'BBB+', and maintained its stable outlook. 
• The downgrade, via the removal of the former positive notch for macro and fiscal policy credibility, reflects the steady erosion over time of Peru's sovereign balance sheet and other key rating metrics. This came on the back of a series of shocks, which has accelerated since 2020 due to the pandemic-related recession and fiscal response. 
• The government’s debt ratio is materially higher than in 2013 when Fitch upgraded Peru to 'BBB+'. Furthermore liquid fiscal buffers have been depleted, eroding the strength of Peru's government balance sheet relative to peers. 
• The trend in economic growth has been declining and Fitch believes that Peru's medium-term investment and economic outlook has weakened as a result of political volatility in recent years. 
• This downgrade of the sovereign could trigger a similar one-notch downgrade of corporates such as Scotiabank Peru whose operations are significantly impacted by the operating environment.

(Source: Fitch Ratings & NCBCM Research)

• Cuba's goods trade deficit will gradually widen in the next decade, as the decline in heavily subsidised oil from Venezuela outweighs the positive impact of currency unification and new trade deals. 
• The services account will fare better as rising tourist arrivals bode well for service sector export growth. Given expectations of solid hard currency inflows from tourism after the COVID-19 shock fades, the beneficial impact of a currency devaluation on exports and a falling debt burden, Fitch expects the stability of Cuba's external accounts will broadly improve over the next decade. 
• That being said, the agency forecasts for Cuba's current account balance shows a shift to a large deficit in 2021. This largely reflects the devaluation of the Cuban peso, which has reduced the forecast for Cuba's GDP in US dollar terms and therefore widened the headline deficit relative to GDP in US dollar terms. 
• Fitch Solutions notes that official data on Cuba's primary and secondary income balances are not regularly updated, introducing significant uncertainty into its forecast.

(Source: Fitch Solutions)

• Surging Covid cases in the U.K. have left the country behind the rest of Europe with former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb calling for urgent research into a mutation known as delta plus. 
• The delta plus strain Gottlieb highlighted includes the K417N mutation, which has stoked concern because it’s also harbored by the beta variant that’s associated with an increased risk of reinfection. 
• “We need urgent research to figure out if this delta plus is more transmissible, and has partial immune evasion,” he said in a tweet. “There’s no clear indication that it’s considerably more transmissible, but we should work to more quickly characterize these and other new variants.” 
• Britain, faster to reopen and relax restrictions than other European countries, reported the highest daily jump in new cases on Sunday since mid-July. Weekly deaths from the virus topped 800 for each of the past six weeks, higher than in other major western European nations, according to Bloomberg’s tracker. 
• The U.K. also has lagged in rolling out the vaccines to adolescents amid concerns that some side effects undermined the net benefit of the shots given children are less likely to become seriously ill. The delay meant most older children weren’t offered a vaccine until the school year had started, and they’re now seeing the highest levels of infection in the population.

(Source: Bloomberg)

• China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in a year in the third quarter of 2021, with a global energy crunch, supply chain bottlenecks, and an unsteady property market also adding pressure on policymakers to bolster a faltering economic recovery. 
• China’s real GDP for Q321 came at 4.9%, which was in line with expectations for a sharp slowdown owing to COVID-19 outbreaks that resulted in localised lockdowns between July and August 2021, as well as acute power shortages.
• It is expected that growth will slow further in Q421 given continued shortages, while 2022 will likely see slower growth than pre-pandemic trend levels. A poorer outlook for investment amid Beijing’s regulatory campaign and push for 'common prosperity', as well as a likely end to China’s export outperformance will cap economic growth in China in 2022.

(Source: Investing.com)

• Director of Tourism, Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), Donovan White recently revealed that the plans to create a digital experience for Jamaica’s tourism product are advanced. 
• Digital experiences are based on the ability to convey real experiences virtually and to date, some 12 or 13 virtual tours of interesting places across Jamaica are now currently available at visitjamaica.com coupled with written content. 
• The entirety of the planned digital experience is one that will take several evolutions, and one of the important aspects of the digital transformation is baked into the Minister’s vision of developing a Blue Ocean Strategy for Jamaica’s tourism. Blue Ocean is a model that allows for your strategy to go into places where your competition does not operate or will have a hard time catching up in the short term. 
• As such, the JTB is working to have that kind of approach to its thinking and strategic modelling, and the  digital transformation will form part of that experience. To date, Jamaica is still one of the few destinations that play in that space aggressively.

(Source: JIS)

• SSL Venture Capital Jamaica Ltd. (SSLVC) advises that it has sold a 20.0% stake in Blue Dot Data Intelligence Limited to Yes Iyah Limited. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Yes Iyah Limited is a company operated by Ryan Reid, Michael Banbury and Sean Shelton. Reid and Banbury are cofounders of FirstRock Capital Holdings. 
• SSLVC had notified the market on May 1, 2020 that it sold the shares to the Founder of Blue Dot and later notified on August 15, 2021 that the Founder’s obligations were not completed. SSLVC exercised its rights, and the Agreement was repudiated. 20% of the shares held by SSLVC were then sold to a third party Yes Iyah Limited on October 06, 2021. 
• SSLVC is in discussions to sell the remaining shares and will notify the market as soon as the transaction is completed. The relationship between SSLVC and the Founder remains positive. 
• The sale will likely result in a one-off gain for the company but could result in a decline in future revenues if the funds are not reinvested in a lucrative opportunity.

(Source: JSE & NCBCM Research)