Growth conditions stabilized in Emerging Markets (EM) excluding China. Our aggregate manufacturing EM PMI eased from 52.0 points in January to 51.5 in February. The slowdown is fully explained by the evolution of China’s official PMI from 51.3 to 50.3, but this data has to be taken with caution since the Chinese New Year may have had an impact on it. The other key deterioration was the drop in Russia’s PMI to 50.2, the worst index since July 2016. Among the improvements, the main came from unbal¬anced economies (those with a large fiscal and/or external deficit: Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and Mexico) with an aggregate PMI of 53.0, the best in the last 7 years. It shows how these economies are benefiting from the dovish global economic environment. Asia Pacific economies excl. China (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Indonesia) exhibited also an improvement to 52.1 on aggregate (best level since April 2011). It reflects that these markets, while highly exposed to China and at the same time very open to trade, are still in a good shape.
