Risky Business Around the World
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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VIP Magazine’s September issue (No. 82) includes a review of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Risk Service, which provides subscribers with quantitative risk assessments for conducting business in 100 emerging and 20 developed countries worldwide.

The service is aimed at end users who are involved in managing financial exposures to foreign countries. Subscribers are most likely to be senior executives, institutional investors and bankers. However, investment managers in large corporate firms, analysts in consultancies and economists will also find this service very useful.

In-depth country reports include analysis of political, economic, currency and sovereign debt risks, two year forecasts and comprehensive tables with quarterly and annual data. In all, EIU analysts use 220 macroeconomic variables when compiling report tables and apply a ratings model, which assesses sovereign debt, currency and banking sector risk.

The Country Risk Service is end-user friendly, with quick search and advanced search options. There is an extensive archive, with reports for all emerging countries available from 1996 onwards.

Downloading and exporting reports and data is flexible. Every table can be exported to Excel and all reports and tables are available via mobile devices. Subscription packages too are flexible: pay-as-you-go purchasing is available and customers can even download single articles within reports – most useful for those on tight budgets.

Professional searchers will notice the lack of advanced data manipulation – for example, it is not currently possible to compare data from several countries, however this will not detract from what is essentially a valuable service to all those dealing with country risk assessment.

A subscription to Country Risk Service includes access to EIU’s Global Forecasting Service, which was the subject of a mini-review by VIP LiveWire in July this year. Go to http://www.vivavip.com/go/e29624 and http://www.vivavip.com/go/e29625 for our reviewer's comments on GFS.

The full VIP Report: Product Review of EIU Country Risk Service can be purchased in the FreePint Shop. Or save money by purchasing the entire VIP No. 82, which includes access to the VIP Report: Product Review of CEIC Data's Brazil Premium Database.

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