The first point is the rapid slowdown in manufacturing activity in Asia. It is contracting in the 4 major countries, from China to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
The movement is even faster for countries that are more dependent on China for product assembly. This is the case for Taiwan and Korea.
This negative shock is a consequence of Trump’s trade measures and weighs very heavily on Asia in general and China in particular. The postponement of the sanctions planned for US imports from China, which were due to take effect on 2 July, is a good thing. However, if the resumption of the Sino-American dialogue makes it possible to avoid the worst, nothing seems to be resolved on the merits and uncertainties will remain.
(With regard to the Vietnam index, are you surprised by the recent interest of the American administration? Chinese activity has moved there)
Synthetic indices on economic activity and new export orders, world trade will continue to slow in the coming months as Asia has been the region most affected by the US measures.
The dynamics of the Eurozone are slowing down quickly. The advanced estimate published last week for the Euro zone has been revised downwards. In the flash estimate it still showed a contraction to 47.8 but slightly improved compared to May (47.7). The final version is 46.6. Activity is slightly worse than in May. The decline in activity is faster.
In addition to the contraction in activity already observed in Germany, there are now also those in Spain and Italy. The Spanish index plunges to 47.9 and that of Italy to 48.4. The French index, although revised downwards by 52 in the estimate at 51.9, is improving compared to spring developments.
Three of the four major countries in the Euro zone have rapidly contracting manufacturing activity. Will growth forecasts have to be revised downwards?
With regard to the dynamics of foreign trade, it can be seen that the profile is the same as that of synthetic indices. Germany is pulling the whole thing down and Italy and Spain are now making a significant contribution to the contraction in orders.
The German situation will continue to deteriorate. The dynamics of world trade will not reverse rapidly, further penalizing the manufacturing sector. But in addition, the slowdown in the cycle, measured here by the IFO index) will result in a slowdown in the labor market. Employment dynamics will slow down and this inflection will be all the more important as the downward nature of the cycle lengthens.
As a result, domestic demand in the German economy will be weaker and could encourage the government to pursue a more flexible policy to offset the negative effects of the international environment. Let us not doubt then that all the countries in the area would benefit from it. The risk is that we really have to go into the negative part of the cycle for the Germans to react. Moreover, even if the ECB is active, as Draghi suggested last week, this will not be enough to reverse the trend.