Improving world trade buoying Nigeria, frontier emerging markets’ macro performance – Fitch

A strong global expansion, improving world trade and highly accommodative global financing conditions are helping frontier emerging markets’ (EMs) macro performance including Nigeria’s, according to Fitch Ratings’ latest ‘Frontier Vision’ chart pack.

Fitch says over half of the frontier EMs on JP Morgan’s Next Generation Market Index (NEXGEM) have seen an improvement in merchandise export growth since January 2018, with over two-thirds having increases in FX reserves and three-quarters experiencing a fall in consumer price inflation.

“In 4Q17, GDP growth picked up across several frontier markets, including Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia, Vietnam, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Costa Rica and Jamaica, while economic activity slowed in Jordan, Iraq, El Salvador, Honduras, Mongolia and Namibia,” the foremost rating and research firm noted.

Fitch’s Frontier Vision chart pack tracks high-frequency macroeconomic data for the 35 countries included in NEXGEM.

The charts cover five years of historical data and the choice of data series has been harmonised as far as possible across all countries to facilitate comparisons. The index comprises 35 countries representing Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.