Thursday, April 23, 2009

Morgan Stanley: Baltic Devaluations Not Imminent, But Now Probable

Morgan Stanley runs a story "No Longer All for One?" at Global Economic Forum today. This excerpt focuses on devaluation:
Devaluations not imminent, but now probable: We do not think that devaluation is imminent for any of the Baltics. Small and closed financial markets make it very hard to force or accelerate the process from outside. We think that Lithuania will receive an EU/IMF aid package before long, and that disbursement will resume in Latvia. IMF funds are currently plentiful and even Ukraine appears to be on the verge of a large disbursement with minimal compliance. It makes little sense to us for Estonia to choose to devalue while 2011 EMU is still an option. However, if the EMU exit strategy is unfeasible in the next few years for Latvia and Lithuania, we now think that both will eventually choose devaluation. International aid may serve to delay this until Estonia can be convincingly seen as being on course for 2011 euro entry, likely early in 2010. A Latvian devaluation before this would risk having a negative impact on its neighbours too. Devaluation would be highly disruptive and no easy option. However, unless the global economy recovers more quickly than we think likely, the alternative to a 2010 devaluation looks like almost open-ended aid and pain.
However, this sounds wrong: "... if the EMU exit strategy is unfeasible in the next few years for Latvia and Lithuania, we now think that both will eventually choose devaluation". Should be "entry strategy"?

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