Coface Ülke Riskleri Güncellendi

In this panorama we first set out a study examining how the advanced economies are facing up to the challenge of weak economic growth since the Lehman Brothers collapse, that isfor the past seven years now! Some observers are even talking of "secular stagnation". But, in our view, not all the advanced economies are facing the same challenges regarding this risk of longterm stagnation. We believe that five of them (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and Switzerland) By Coface Group Economists currently have sufficient strengths to succeed over the nextdecade, when measured according to the five indicators we selected (demographics, innovation, debt, income, inequality and international trade). With this issue we are also publishing our quarterly barometer of worldwide trends in country risk. With regard to the development of the risks since the end of 2014, weexplain why we have upgraded our risk assessments for Belgium, Cambodia and the Netherlands and give a
positive view on Tunisia's outlook. We also explain why we give a negative assessment for the prospects for Brazil and Ecuador and why we have downgraded our assessment for Sierra Leone. We have also revised our assessments of the business environment in Kuwait, Uganda, Russia and Togo. Readers will find updated reports for some of these countries setting out their economic situation in more detail, at the end of the panorama. Readers will also find updated country analyses for Cyprus, Greece, India, Russia and Nigeria

Almost seven years after the Lehman Brothers collapse, world growth is still much weaker than before the crisis: +2.8% in 2014 (+3.0% expected by Coface in 2015), against +4.3% in 2007. While the difficulties experienced by many emerging countries explain these figures, in part, the problems of growth in the advanced economies are also responsible. This poor growth observed since the crisis in the advanced economies is even, at times, seen as an irreversible phenomenon. Larry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary, notably talked of "secular stagnation" at a conference organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November 2013 as way of characterising this state of lasting stagnation into which the advanced economies are said to have fallen. It is argued that this stagnation is caused by a persistent lack of investment compared to saving together with the attendant negative interest rates. There are also several other explanations, such as the slowdown in technological progress or even weaker demographic growth.But if growth is low in all the advanced economies, the pattern of growth differs from one region to another: the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, are doing better than Japan and the Eurozone. And even within the Eurozone itself, Spain and Germany are performing better than France and Italy. Cyclical factors, such as the fall in the oil price, currency fluctuations, and above all varying economic policies partly explain the recent disparities in growth. For example, after the Lehman Brothers shock, the US Federal Reserve was quicker to introduce monetary easing than its Eurozone counterpart. Equally, during the same period, the UK government acted more quickly than the Eurozone in implementing fiscal consolidation measures aimed at curbing the

growth of the public debt. These austerity measures could then be stopped earlier so as not to hinder the recovery. But beyond these differences in the short-term economic dynamics, we focus in this study on the longer term determinants of growth, in order to
answer the following questions: are all the advanced economies doomed to this "secular stagnation"? Which among them have sufficient strengths not only to prevent slower growth, but quite the opposite, to allow faster growth in the next ten years? In order to identify which of the OECD countries are least at risk of entering into a prolonged period of weak growth and even stagnation we have used five criteria. Two of these are traditional determinants of an economy's long-term growth: demographics and innovation (to
measure technological process). This is because the prospects for long-term growth depend to a great extent on demographic growth and on growth in productivity (itself linked to an economy's capacity to innovate). The three other criteria chosen, however, relate
more to the recent crisis. Effectively this has highlighted the negative consequences for economic activity of excess public and private sector debt (3 re criterion). Increased levels of income inequality within the OECD countries is also one of the arguments increasingly put forward to explain the 2008-2009 crisis and then the weakness of the recovery (4th criterion), insofar as this leads to the long-term reduction in purchasing power for low-income households, which have the highest propensity to consume. Finally, the countries which have succeeded in improving the competitiveness of their export goods can expect to partly offset lower domestic demand through exports (5 th criterion).