The US, Europe, China and Japan might be slowing, but India is booming, too much so it seems after Friday’s unexpected interest rate rise.
It was the third rate rise this year in India, which now matches Australia in the frequency of increases.
It came at the end of a difficult week for the global economy, especially the US where fears of an impending slowdown strengthened their grip.
The Swedish central bank lifted rates by 0.25% to 0.50% last week; China has tightened asset reserve ratios for its banks and unpegged the Yuan; central banks in New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia and Taiwan have also boosted official rates in the past two months because of solidly performing economies and fears about inflation.
But this week central banks in Australia, the eurozone and the UK won’t be moving rates after their respective policy meetings.
Central banks in Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand kept rates unchanged in June while they watched the fall-out from Europe and China’s slowing economy.
Now they have to add to their considerations, a slowdown gradually emerging in the US economy, possible deflation, no change in the crippling high level of unemployment and a fall in long term interest rates.
The US dollar’s surprise turn on Wednesday continued, with the euro up to $US1.2566, the Aussie dollar firmed back over 84 USc but commodities were hesitant, gold was up a touch, as was copper, but oil was softer.
America’s June employment data was the focus of all the attention.
Private hiring rose by 83,000 after adding only 33,000 jobs in May.
Total non-farm employment actually dropped 125,000 – the largest decline since October – as the government laid off 225,000 temporary census workers.
The unemployment rate fell to 9.5%, the lowest level since July 2009, from 9.7% in May, but only because a flood of jobless workers (over 600,000) who simply gave up looking for employment, which in itself was the most significant statistic of the week.
If not for that, the unemployment rate would have jumped to 10%.
And the labor-force participation rate (that is, the number of workers counted as participating in the national economy) fell by 0.3 percentage points.
And the median duration of unemployment rose to 25.5 weeks in June, from 23.2 in May.
A record 1.21 million people want to work, but said they aren’t looking because of the weak labor market, according to federal statistics released Friday. The June figure is up from 793,000 a year ago.
Besides Friday night’s jobs report in the US disappointed, again, eurozone unemployment didn’t budge from 10%, even though there was an improvement in Germany.
In something of a surprise, China lifted its 2009 economic growth rate from the reported 8.7%, to a much stronger 9.1%.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the rise came as a result of revisions. The country’s GDP hit 34.0507 trillion Yuan ($US5.296 trillion), up 515.4 billion Yuan ($US76 billion) from the previous estimate.
But that’s just history; the important figures for the second quarter will be out July 15.
News of India’s rate rise came late in the day and was driven by growing concern that inflation is getting away from the central bank and the government.
The central bank increased its reverse repurchase rate for a third time this year to 4%, the highest level since March 2009, from 3.75%.
The repurchase rate was increased to 5.5% from 5.25%.
The rate rise decision came out of the blue and 25 days before the next inflation update on July 27.
India’s economy grew 8.6% in the March quarter, with inflation now running above 10%.
The Reserve Bank will continue to monitor the macroeconomic conditions, particularly the price situation, and take further action as warranted, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement.
The Indian economy is running hot: wholesale-price inflation jumped to an annual rate of 10.2% in May, while consumer prices are up by near 14% and industrial production is surging at an annual rate of 167.6% in the year to April.
The big driver to inflation is the rising cost of food, with sugar a major part of that because of the poor monsoon last year, falling production and high world prices.
In contrast, consumer-price gains are running at 2.9% in Australia, minus 1.5% in Japan, 3.1% in China, and under 2% in the US and Europe.
