United States

We’ve just expanded our coverage from the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the addition of the grain transportation cost indicators (GSTI). The dataset tracks the weekly cost indices of grain transportation per mode: truck, rail, barge, and ocean-going vessels.

In the chart below, we displayed the two ocean-going vessels and the truck index. While the supply-chain shortages generated a jump in transportation costs, across all transportation modes in 2021, the recent oil price surge has led to a sudden spike in truck transportation costs, which will likely be transferred to consumers and reflected in the coming inflation figures.

Malaysia

For Malaysia, we’ve increased our business surveys coverage with sectorial breakdowns for business confidence, as well as gross revenue and employee number expectations.

In the first chart below, we summarised the recent development in business confidence across all breakdowns with a heatmap representation. While all sectors suffered during the past two years, the industry and the services sectors seem to be on the path to recovery, while the construction sector remains in turmoil.

In the second chart, we focused on the historical trends of the four main economic sectors. This is the first time in 14 years that such a discrepancy appears across sectors, with construction being still significantly negative while the other three sectors have recovered and show a positive outlook.

Japan

For Japan, we’ve added a new dataset from the business outlook survey published by the Ministry of Finance, covering the quantitative aspects of the outlook. More specifically, the dataset provides information on investments in plant & equipment across firms, split per size.

In the chart below, we can see the impact of the pandemic on small enterprises: they are the ones that suffered most and this is reflected in their capacity to invest, which is now very limited and constrained.