MGI Weekly round-up | 20 April 2018

Stories MGI has been tracking this week:

  • Djukanovic wins Montenegro’s election with 53.9% of the vote
  • Egypt to auction more oil and gas blocks in the Mediterranean
  • Turkey's President Erdogan calls for early elections on June 24th

And as always, we feature content from the MGI data and analysis platform, a summary of the week’s key statistical releases, and a look to the week ahead in data. This week, we use the MGI platform (TRADE section) to look at Egypt’s main imported commodities.
 

Djukanovic wins Montenegro’s election with 53.9% of the vote 

Milo Djukanovic, who had almost continuously served as premier or president in Montenegro for more than a quarter of a century, won the presidential election held on April 15th.According to results from the state election commission, Djukanovic won 53.9% of the vote, eliminating the need for a runoff. Milan Bojanic, Djukanovic’s main challenger, got 33.4%. Turnout stood at 63.9%, virtually identical to the 2013 elections.
 
The 56-year-old victor said he sees the election results ”primarily as the confirmation of Montenegro’s strong determination to stick to the European quality of life and membership in the EU”.
 

Egypt to auction more oil and gas blocks in the Mediterranean

According to the Egyptian Petroleum Minister, Egypt plans to auction 10 or 11 oil and gas exploration blocks in the Mediterranean. In addition, the country intends to auction blocks in the Red Sea by the end of 2018.
 
Egypt aims to accelerate production from the newly discovered fields in order to reduce imports and achieve self-sufficiency, Reuters reports.
 
Interestingly, IEOC, a subsidiary of Italian energy company Eni, said at a separate press conference this week that it plans to increase gas production from Egypt's huge Zohr field – which is estimated to contain 30 trillion cubic feet of gas – to 1.2 billion cubic feet a day in May and up to 2 billion cubic feet per day until the end of this year.
                           

Turkey's President Erdogan calls for early elections on June 24th 

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that the country will hold snap parliamentary and presidential elections on June 24th, more than a year earlier than they were due to take place. Last year Erdogan narrowly won a referendum that transformed Turkey's parliamentary democracy into a powerful executive presidency and will hand the president new powers after the vote. The elections will be held under a state of emergency, declared following the failed coup in 2016. 
 
Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, spoke of the need for the new political system to be implemented quickly in order to deal with the challenges ahead in a firmer way. Such challenges include the country’s military operations in neighbouring Syria and Iraq and the need to make important decisions about investments in an economy unlikely to maintain last year’s rapid growth. According to Reuters, the economy is likely to grow 4.1% in 2018, short of the government’s target by almost 1.5%.
 

Featured content from the MGI data and analysis portal 

In this edition of our newsletter, we use the TRADE section of the MGI platform to look at Egypt’s main imported commodities in 2015. As shown in the graphs below, mineral fuels had by far the largest share in the country’s imports in 2015 (with a value of around $11.9 billion) and were mainly imported from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Other important categories of imported commodities included vehicles and vehicle parts ($6.3 billion) and nuclear reactors and machinery (about $6 billion). 

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The week in data

Highlights from national statistics releases tracked by MGI this week include: 

 

Looking ahead

Next week we expect data on inflation, industrial production and consumer and business confidence for several Mediterranean countries, as well as real GDP figures for France and Spain.  MGI’s complete data release schedule can be viewed at our release calendar section.
 
Monday 23 April, 2018:

  • France Manufacturing, Services and Composite PMI for April, flash estimates
  • France 3-month, 6-month and 12-month BTF auction
  • Spain Industrial orders for February
  • Lebanon inflation rate for March

Tuesday 24 April, 2018:

  • France business confidence for April
  • Israel manufacturing PMI for April
  • Italy business and consumer confidence for April
  • Turkey business confidence and capacity utilization for April
  • Malta inflation rate for March

Wednesday 25 April, 2018:

  • France consumer confidence for April
  • Spain PPI for March
  • France registered unemployed for March
  • Israel balance of trades for March
  • Turkey central bank interest rate decision 
  • Montenegro IPI for February, final estimate
  • Montenegro IPI for March, preliminary estimate

Thursday 26 April, 2018:

  • Spain unemployment rate and employment for 2018Q1
  • Israel IPI for February

Friday 27 April, 2018:

  • France real GDP for 2018Q1, first estimate
  • France domestic and harmonized inflation for April, preliminary estimate
  • France household consumption expenditure for March
  • France PPI for March
  • Spain real GDP for 2018Q1, flash estimate
  • Spain domestic and harmonized inflation for April, preliminary estimate
  • Spain retail sales for March
  • Turkey economic confidence index for April
  • Italy PPI for March
  • Italy 5-year and 10-year BTP auction
  • Spain business confidence for April
  • Turkey auto production for March
  • Cyprus IPI for February
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