“Despite what is happening politically in mature economies, we are seeing a real broadening of growth in emerging markets,” said Ulrik Bie, an economist<br />at the Institute of International Finance, a trade group for global banks, which bumped up its growth forecasts in light of recent data.<br />According to an index of hard and soft economic data points compiled by the Institute of International Finance, growth<br />in emerging economies was up 6.8 percent through the first quarter this year — the model’s highest reading since 2011.<br />The impressive trade numbers coming from China (exports grew 16 percent in March) as well as similarly robust export figures in South Korea, Taiwan<br />and Malaysia also point to a sharp recent pickup in global trade.<br />Other economies considered to be emerging markets — Mexico, South Korea<br />and Brazil — are also overcoming deterrents, like volatile currencies, political upheaval and worries of a trade crackdown by the Trump administration, to generate stronger-than-expected economic growth.<br />Turkey’s robust performance — exports last month were up 19 percent on an annual basis — highlights what has<br />been a string of unusually expansive data showings by emerging markets since the beginning of the year.<br />In China, import growth in volume terms, a major measure of domestic demand in the economy, was up 20 percent during the first two months of the year.<br />Fears that the Chinese economy would slam on the brakes, a slump in commodity prices and political scandals<br />that hobbled countries like Brazil have taken a toll, spurring a broad exodus of global investment funds from such markets.
