Australia’s producing prices have risen with a slower rate in Q2 (second quarter) of 2015, compared to the first one. This has given the central bank more room to maneuver the financial leverages. The PPI (Producer Price Index) rose only with 0.3% quarterly, this figure being of 0.5% in the previous quarter. The trend is mainly downward since 2011, the last time that it was up with 2% (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
Traveling back to Europe, Eurostat’s preliminary data release on Friday announced that inflation (calculated based on the PCI) has remained at the 0.2% previous level, figures remaining unchanged. Not the same thing was said about core inflation which rose at 0.9% from June’s previous 0.8%. Although prices are on an ascending slope for the last three months, ECB’s goal of 2% is still far of reach. IMF (International Monetary Fund) also announced last week that although prices seem to rise monthly, the low inflation risk is still as present as always. They also declared that it would be best for the EU that the QE program would be extended beyond September, 2016. ECB also acknowledges that the risk is still present (enhanced by the price drop in energy and oil), expecting lower prices on short term but a 1.5% inflation on midterm (September, 2016).
Canada’s official economic analyses release on Friday pose a fall in the country’s real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of 0.2% in May, this being the 5th consecutive month-to-month decrease. April’s economic contraction was of 0.1%. Behind May’s 0.2% decrease lay the fall in manufacturing, mining, oil and gas and also quarrying, but also on wholesale trade. The manufacturing industry went still in April, and down with 1.5% in May, an average between the 2.4% decrease in durable-goods and 0.7% in non-durable goods manufacturing. . There was also a 0.6% fall of May’s output in the goods-producing industry, here being the 5th consecutive diminishing. In the service industry, after three consecutive months of expansion, the output went down by 0.1% in May.
In China, the PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) in manufacturing reached the 50.0 threshold in July, coming down from a 50.2 value in June, as per the National Bureau of Statistics reports. 50.0 represents the midpoint between economic contraction and expansion. Analysts think that this downslope which is affecting the PMI is a proof of the continuing decrease in demand (abroad and at home), of the censored property sector and also of the stock-market bubble.
