• According to Fitch, the impact of US sanctions on Cuba will combine with long-standing structural economic deficiencies to push the country into recession in 2019.
• The Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) government will pursue a number of strategies to support growth, but these will likely only have a modest impact.
• Fitch forecasts -2.2% real GDP growth in Cuba in 2019, down from an estimated 1.1% in 2018. Given the lack of up-to-date economic data, there is a relatively large degree of uncertainty surrounding the forecasts for 2019 and the coming years.

(Source: Fitch)

• Oil is adding to yesterday’s gains, with a barrel of West Texas Intermediate for June delivery trading above $66 this morning while Brent crude was also higher.
• The move comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to end waivers on the ban of Iranian oil exports in an attempt to increase pressure on the Tehran regime.
• For oil traders, it’s a cue to reprise levels hit when Iranian sanctions were first introduced.

(Source: Bloomberg)

• Some Federal Reserve policymakers seem resigned to running a heightened risk of asset bubbles and other financial excesses as they seek to keep the economic expansion going.
• That’s one of the messages tucked inside the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 19-20 policy-making meeting.
• “A few participants observed that the appropriate path for policy, insofar as it implied lower interest rates for longer periods of time, could lead to greater financial stability risks,’’ according to the minutes, published April 10.
• The last two expansions ended not in a burst of inflation, but in financial froth, first a dot-com stock market boom, then a housing bubble.

(Source: Bloomberg

• The 2018/19 Winter Tourist Season has emerged as Jamaica’s most successful based on earnings and visitor arrivals, as highlighted by Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett.
• He noted that over the last three months of the season, which commenced on December 15, the industry welcomed nearly 800,000 stopover visitors while generating more than $1Bn in earnings.
• Bartlett added that 121,000 persons directly employed in the sector, and another 375 who work indirectly, benefited from this out-turn.

(Source: JIS)

• Jamaica’s unemployment rate declined to 8.0% in January 2019, relative to the 9.6% recorded in January 2018.  This improvement in the unemployment rate occurred in spite of the 1.2% reduction in the number of persons classified as being ‘Outside the Labour Force’.
• There was a 2.4% increase in the number of participants classified in the ‘employed labor force’, and the number of female entrants (3.5%) more than doubled the number of males (1.4%) joining the labor force.
• Furthermore, the unemployment rate for youth (14-24 years) declined to 21.8% in January 2019 compared to 23.7% in January 2018.
• STATIN’s survey indicates that at end-January 2019, there were 1,340,200 persons in the Labour Force, an increase of 8,400 (0.71%) when compared to 1,331,800 registered in January 2018.

(Source: STATIN)

• Van Selm, the person leading the IMF mission to Barbados, commented on the recent tax measures imposed on the tourism sector, telling Barbados TODAY he agreed with Government that they were necessary.
• In addition to a range of levies on hotel room rates depending on the accommodation type, and a subsequent increase in those rates, the hotel sector is in line to pay an increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) from 7.5% to 10%, as of January next year.
• As a result of the four-year, US$290 million IMF-funded programme, travelers leaving Barbados on international trips have also been slapped with a new US$70 departure tax, while those traveling regionally pay US$35.
• Van Selm noted that a country should not have its main industry “contributing next to nothing to tax credit”.

(Source: Barbados Today)

• Growth in 2018 was backed by buoyant tourism and construction activity. Real GDP is estimated to have grown by 2.3 percent in 2018, and growth is projected to steady at 2.1 percent in 2019, underpinned by continued growth in the tourism sector.
• The medium-term outlook is positive, but risk factors such as slowdown in the U.S. and other economies, reputational risk in the offshore sector and vulnerability to hurricanes could weigh on growth.
• The effective implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (FRL) will bolster policy credibility and ensure durable gains from fiscal consolidation.
• In the near term, however, there is a need for expenditure restraint to deliver the FY2018/19 target. 

 (Source: IMF)

• Senior U.S. and Chinese officials are scheduling more face-to-face trade talks in an effort to reach a deal by early-May that President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could sign later that month, two people familiar with the plans said.
• In an indication the Trump administration is making concessions needed to reach a deal, Mnuchin said that the pact will have “real enforcement on both sides.” That would mean the U.S. -- not just China -- could be hit with penalties if it fails to live up to its commitments.
• Bloomberg News reported Monday that China is considering a U.S. request to shift some of its retaliatory tariffs from key agricultural products to other American exports.

(Source: Bloomberg)

• Inflation that’s projected to reach an eyeball-popping 8 million percent this year has left Venezuela saddled with the title of the world’s most miserable economy.
• The embattled South American nation topped the rankings of Bloomberg’s Misery Index, which sums inflation and unemployment outlooks for 62 economies, for the fifth straight year.
• Venezuela and a handful of others in the “most miserable” camp are in a lonely battle fighting high inflation alongside lofty jobless rates.
• Most other countries’ policymakers this year face a very different challenge: a tricky combination of quiet inflation and lower unemployment that complicates readings on economic health and appropriate responses.

(Source: Bloomberg)

• Jamaica Producers Group Limited announced that it has entered into an agreement with Wisynco Group Limited to transfer 30% of the shares in its subsidiary JP Snacks Caribbean Limited. JP Snacks Caribbean Limited is a holding company that will own the “JP St. Mary’s” brand and JP’s tropical snack manufacturing operations. JP will hold the remaining 70 % percent of JP Snacks.
• The goal of the partnership is to bring to consumers a wide range of innovative Caribbean snacks and tropical foods. WISYNCO will bring to the partnership, their expertise in marketing, manufacturing and its distribution network. The transaction values JP Snacks at J$2.4Bn and sees WISYNCO investing J$720Mn for a 30 percent interest.
• Jamaica Producers Group will seek to strengthen distribution in existing markets in the USA, Canada, the Caribbean, the UK, and Central America, in addition to seeking new markets.

(Source: Release to the JSE)