Mexico: good news on growth prospect
Here’s a little lift in case you were getting down on Mexico’s continuing growth prospects: April retail sales outstripped analysts’ estimates by almost 300 per cent.
The news – sales, which include those from Walmex and Soriana, the country’s two largest retail outlets, increased 1.1 per cent compared with the previous month, and 4.9 per cent year on year – is uplifting because it comes as concern mounts over the effects of weaker US economic data on Mexico’s recovery. Continue reading »
Chile’s Polar struggles amid scandal
A bit of good news at last? The picture at Chile’s fourth-biggest retailer, La Polar, has been unremittingly black in recent days as an unprecedented – and unexpected – credit scandal has snowballed.
A share crash (nearly 80 per cent since June 9) has wiped nearly $1bn off the company, the interim chairman quit this week and the market reckoned the firm was heading for bankruptcy or takeover after it admitted that executives restructured 475bn pesos of overdue credits without telling either the 400,000 customers affected, or the board. Continue reading »
The Arab spring turned nations and markets inside out. Ann Wyman, head of emerging markets research at Nomura, talks to Robin Wigglesworth, capital markets correspondent, about how economies in north Africa and the Gulf have fared since the historic events at the start of the year.
Prague: new tourist rush
Many Praguers may groan at the thought, but for the trinket sellers, portrait artists, clowns and traders jostling for space on the city’s Charles Bridge – not to mention the hoteliers – there’s good news this week: tourist numbers are on the up.
After falling in the global economic crisis, occupancy levels in Prague’s hotels hit 80.1 per cent in May, a jump of almost 7 percentage points on May 2010. But can the recovery last when the government is preparing to impose increase taxes on the industry? Continue reading »
Brazilian fashion: taking on Dior
São Paulo has just wrapped up its 30th fashion week, predictably notable for both its bikini offerings and celebrity appearances – film star Ashton Kutcher made it, but model Gisele Bundchen did not.
Although the event is now the world’s fifth-largest behind Paris, Milan, London and New York, Brazil is still a good deal away from cracking into international fashion. Indeed a lot of the effort goes into trying to hold on to luxury-hungry local shoppers and stop them buying foreign brands. Continue reading »
Google: Welcome to the Indic web
Google is one of the few multinational companies to be considered a thought leader in India, in large part because it has worked hard to adapt its products to the Indian market.
In continuation of this strategy, Google announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its translation services to include five more Indian languages, taking the total Indian languages available to translate on Google to seven. But will the introduction of new languages help Google to reach a wider audience and, in turn, larger market share? Continue reading »
The Gulf: magnanimous MSCI
Investors had expected that MSCI, the index provider, would spurn the UAE and Qatar’s attempts to have their bourses bumped up from frontier to emerging market classification.
But they were pleasantly surprised at how softly MSCI let them down. Continue reading »
Serbia: a €1.5bn Italian power plant – with enviromental costs
Italian energy company Edison has reached a deal with Serbia’s state-owned power company, Elektroprivreda Srbija (EPS) to build a new coal-fired plant, sources close to the deal confirmed to beyondbrics.
The project’s value could reach €1.5bn and would bring state-of-the-art technology to the ex-Yugoslav country, which for now makes do with power plants pre-dating the 1990s wars and just enough residual engineering talent to keep them running. Continue reading »
Russia’s understated motor mogul
By Ben Aris of business new europe
Sergei Petrov cuts a diminutive and modest figure compared to the crowd in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton hotel in central Moscow. That’s surprising because the founder of Rolf, Russia’s biggest car dealership, is probably the richest man in the room by far, and Russians are hardly known for understatement when it comes to displaying their wealth. Continue reading »
Brazil and Peru: much ado about nothing?
A month ago, Brazilian markets were in a tizzy at the prospect that Antonio Palocci, president Dilma Rousseff’s Wall Street-friendly chief of staff, might have to resign – as he eventually did. Yet “Paloccigate” has so far had an almost negligible market impact. One month on, Brazilian bonds have continued to grind higher, and stocks are more or less flat. Continue reading »
New York headlines
* Indian investors avoid ‘political’ stocks
* PetroChina shale gas talks collapse
* World Bank in push for food price hedging
* MSCI delays decision on upgrading UAE, Qatar to Emerging-Market status Continue reading »
China: money’s too tight to mention
Another day, another leg up in China’s money market lending rate. Wednesday’s spike puts the rate at 8.85 per cent – the highest level since October 2007, and higher than the most recent spike from January this year. Continue reading »
Further reading: Eurozone, learn from LatAm mistakes
Wednesday’s best picks from the beyondbrics team: Examining the effect of minimum pay on textile factories in South Africa, and what the eurozone can learn from LatAm mistakes. Elsewhere, why bearded university students in Russia are taking high school exams. Continue reading »
Cristina 2.0: then what?
Game over? Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández, has finally confirmed she is running for reelection and looks unstoppable in her bid to win a second term.
So the flame of Kirchnerism, as the brand of populist politics she inherited from her husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, is known, looks set to burn on. But will it flicker and sputter or burn brighter? Will Cristina, as she is universally known, be a lame duck (she cannot seek re-election) or, as she has vowed, a “bridge” between an old and new guard in Argentine politics? Continue reading »
China plugs data leaks: will it work?
Is China finally cracking down on what amounts to a systemic monthly ritual of insider trading? That would be the most favourable interpretation of news this week that the government is investigating five people over the leak of national economic data. A more negative interpretation is also possible Continue reading »
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