This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 8, 2024 - April 14, 2024

It will be a relatively quiet week on the local economic front as the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close and Muslims celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri, with April 10 and 11 being public holidays. Taking centre stage is the slew of monetary policy decisions in major economies due this week.

Across the Causeway, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will release its monetary policy statement (MPS) on April 12, together with the advance first quarter of 2024 gross domestic product (GDP) estimate by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).

“Although the door is open to policy normalisation (30% probability), we expect MAS to keep policy unchanged in April.Instead,we have our base case for the commencement of policy normalisation at the July 2024 MPS (70% probability) via a slight slope reduction (by 50 basis points [bps]),” said UOB Global Economics & Markets Research economist Alvin Liew in an April 5 report.

Liew expects Singapore’s GDP to grow 2.9% year on year in 1Q (compared with Bloomberg’s estimated 2.9% y-o-y) and 2.2% y-o-y in 4Q.

Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, the Philippine Central Bank (BSP) will announce its monetary policy decision on April 8, followed by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) on April 10 and the Bank of Korea (BOK) on April 12.

For the BSP, all 13 economists polled by Bloomberg last Monday forecast that the BSP would keep its overnight borrowing rate unchanged at 6.5% while seven economists expect the BSP’s standing overnight deposit rate to stay unchanged at 6%.

All seven economists polled in the Bloomberg survey on the same day expect RBNZ to keep the official cash rate unchanged at 5.5%, while seven of eight economists expect BOT’s policy rate to stay unchanged at 2.5% and one lone economist expects the Thai central bank to cut the rate by 25bps to 2.25%.

Meanwhile, both economists who polled for BOK expect it to keep the policy base rate unchanged at 3.5%.

The only two G7 central banks announcing monetary policy decisions this week are the Bank of Canada (BOC) on April 10 and the European Central Bank (ECB) the following day. Bloomberg analysts expect both banks to keep their policy rates unchanged: BOC at 5% and ECB at 4.5%.

Meanwhile, attention will invariably turn to the outcome of US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s meetings in China from April 4 to 8 with Premier Li Qiang and Finance Minister Lan Fo’an as well as other government officials to hash out rules on how the world’s two most powerful countries are to compete with each other.

Yellen is among the first US cabinet members to visit China this year after she and secretary of state Antony J Blinken travelled to Beijing last year to stabilise relations after tempers flared during the Chinese spy balloon episode.

Yellen said her visit would be a “continuation of the dialogue that we have been engaged in and deepening” ever since US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in 2022 in Indonesia. She noted that it would be her third meeting with China’s vice-premier He Lifeng.

Key data in China this week includes March foreign reserves on April 7, March M2 money supply (April 9 to 15), March consumer price index (CPI) on April 11 and March trade data on April 12. Meanwhile, India’s March CPI and February industrial production will be on April 12. Taiwan’s March CPI and March Trade Data will be on April 11 and 12.

In the US, the corporate earnings reporting season will kick off with 569 companies reporting over the week, of which merely 10 are Standard & Poor’s 500 firms.

“The focus is likely on the major US banks reporting from April 12 onwards,” Liew said.

The US Federal Reserve’s March Federal Open Market Committee minutes will be released on April 11. Note that the Bank of England (BOE) will release a review of its forecasting models and methodology by former Fed chair Ben Bernanke on April 12.

“It could herald what BOE chief economist Huw Pill said in March as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to shake up the central bank’s forecasting and communication methods,” said Liew.

US economic data releases will be the March overall CPI (estimated 3.5% y-o-y) and core CPI data (estimated 3.7% y-o-y) on April 10 and the March producer price index (estimated 2.4% y-o-y) final demand on April 11.

People will also be watching for initial jobless claims for the week ending April 6 on April 11, as well as the March import price index and April University of Mich-igan consumer confidence sentiment on April 12.

Note that other economies in Asia also celebrating Hari Raya this week include Indonesia (April 8 to 15), Brunei (April 10 to 12), India (April 11) and Singapore (April 10).

The Philippine markets will also be closed for Araw Ng Kagitingan on April 9, followed by the Eid al-Fitr holiday the following day.

The Thai markets will close for a special holiday on April 12, followed by the Songkran festival from April 13 to 16. South Korea will hold legislative elections on April 10, which will also be a public holiday.

There are no cases of note in the local courts this week.

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