It’s a rare thing for a press conference from China’s Minister of Finance to excite quite so much, but there were widespread hopes in markets that Saturday’s briefing from Lan Fo’an would finally provide the details of fiscal easing plans that had been missing from the government’s stimulus pledges so far. Did Minister Lan deliver?

Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing gives his assessment on the latest episode of The Weekly Briefing from Capital Economics and discusses what the leadership needs to deliver to boost confidence in its steering of the economy. Neil also talks about the latest flow of US data and what that signals about what the Fed will do in November and previews the coming week’s ECB policy meeting.

Also on the show, Deputy Chief EM Economist Shilan Shah and Assistant Economist Joe Maher talk about India’s economic rise and whether it will trigger a massive and broad surge in commodities prices, as China did previously.

Research and events referenced in this episode:

MOF promises more spending but scale still unclear
Asia Drop-In: How far will policy easing go to support Asia’s economies?
Europe Drop-In: What will follow another ECB rate cut?
Will India kickstart the next commodity boom?
RBI on course for December rate cut

Another China stimulus let-down, the Fed and ECB’s next steps, India’s commodities demand and more