EUROPA CAPTURADA - 2

Há quem acredite que haja uma conspiração anglo-saxónica orquestrada pelo Tesouro norte-americano contra o euro. Comentei aqui. Contrariando tal tese, o euro continua a mostrar uma resiliência notável ainda que o pavor que tem sido construido a seu respeito tenha certamente assustado muita passarada nas zonas mais apavoradas. Hoje o euro está a cotar-se 33,4% acima do dólar mas as mais recentes notícias (vd FT de hoje) dão conta que a economia norte-americana continua a recuperar contrastando com a contração na Zona Euro. Boas notícias para a administração de Obama que tem optado por uma política monetária maleável que Berlim não tem consentido para a Europa. À condução conseguida pelo razoável equilíbrio entre o acelerador e o travão, a travagem forçada de forma abrupta dos que, no Zona Euro, ganharam níveis de velocidade de endividamento excessivo, continua a conduzir a Europa para o despiste.   

A anemia económica observada na Europa, que no seu conjunto é o mais forte espaço económico mundial,  não podia deixar de ter consequências no processo de crescimento vigoroso a que se vinha assistindo na Ásia, ainda que sejam contraditórias as indicações acerca do comportamento da economia chinesa no primeiro trimestre. Surpreendentemente para muitos, são os EUA que, neste momento, apresentam sintomas mais confortáveis de recuperação económica. Manter-se-ão até fins de Outubro quando a disputa eleitoral presidencial norte-americana chegar ao fim? Para já, o momentum está do lado de Obama.

Transcrevo:

"Manufacturing activity in the US is picking up as its domestic economy recovers, underlining the diverging fates of the world’s biggest economy and the eurozone. American factory output expanded at an accelerating rate in March, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ index. Similar PMI surveys for the eurozone confirmed an earlier estimate that manufacturing activity contracted in the region, with French manufacturing proving exceptionally weak. UK manufacturers, however, surprised economists by expanding a little quicker in March spite of the woes of Britain’s eurozone trading partners.“The world is polarised by the strength in the US domestic economy, which is providing a source of demand for companies worldwide, but against that you’ve got the eurozone,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, the company that runs most of the PMI surveys. “We’re left in a position where overall global manufacturing growth isn’t what it was before the crisis.”

(...)

Overall, the world’s manufacturing sector continued to expand, though at a slow rate, for the fourth month running, according to an aggregation of the surveys. The JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI was 51.1 in March, little changed from 51.2 in February. New orders continued to increase gradually, after they fell towards the end of last year when the escalating eurozone crisis sent a chilling effect through the global economy.

One source of worry for manufacturers in all countries was the sharp rise in oil and transport prices. Globally, input price inflation in March was the highest in eight months, Markit said, though it remained much less dramatic than in the first quarter of last year. There were pockets of manufacturing strength in Brazil, Japan and South Korea, but India’s output growth slowed sharply. China’s official PMI survey, released a day earlier, also defied expectations of a slowdown by notching up its strongest reading for a year. However, a separate China PMI released by HSBC showed a fifth monthly decline.