Brazil: time to wean itself off BNDES?
Brazilians are generally not big fans of DIY, but when it comes to the economy, the government is always keen to resort to some good old Do-It-Yourself.
And their favourite tool? BNDES – the super-state bank with a loan book about four times bigger than the World Bank’s.
Brazil’s Treasury Secretary Arno Augustin has told the country’s Valor Econômico newspaper that the government is considering pumping cash into BNDES for the fifth straight year. Continue reading »
Venezuela-ICSID: leaving is easier said than done
Hugo Chavez openly said during his nearly ten hour marathon address to congress last week that it’s not “fair play” to change the rules of the game before it is over to your advantage
“It’s as if I were to go and play baseball and say, no, I don’t trust this referee – in which case don’t play, how can you play?” asked the Venezuelan leader, demanding that his opponents accept the results of presidential elections next October, whatever they may be, and not complain that the electoral authority is biased.
However, if that is how Chavez feels about the election game, his take is a bit different when it comes to the investment game. Continue reading »
The flight from emerging markets has not quite gone into reverse. Investors, though, are dipping their toes in again.
Debt issued in dollars by emerging countries, rather than in their local currencies, has enjoyed strong demand since the start of the year. The volume of international bond sales by emerging market issuers reached $13bn last week, the highest weekly volume since the beginning of 2011 according to Dealogic. Continue reading »
Egypt: resilient tourists wanted
Just under a year ago, Vladimir Putin quipped about the resilience of his people noting that Russian tourists continued to head for Egypt even as revolutionary turmoil gripped the country and other foreign nationals fled.
Putin understands how to talk his people up. However, do the numbers bear him out? And how is Egyptian tourism faring? Continue reading »
Let’s go shopping: Morgan Stanley in Russia’s biggest ever property deal
Photo: Mace
For months rumours were swirling that a Morgan Stanley real estate fund was interested in Galeria, a swishy five-story shopping mall in the centre of St Petersburg. Now the fund and the seller – Meridian Capital CIS Fund of Kazakhstan – have agreed on a price, people close to the deal tell beyondbrics. And it’s a whopping $1.1bn.
The seven-figure number will make the Galeria sale Russia’s largest commercial property deal ever - and coincides with other possible good signs for the Russian property market. Continue reading »
China and UAE agree currency swap
The United Arab Emirates has become the latest country with which China has signed a currency swap agreement, worth 35bn yuan ($5.5bn), aimed at promoting bilateral trade and that could boost the renminbi’s role in the Middle East.
The agreement will be effective for three years, Reuters reports, and was announced by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s regional tour amid efforts to secure key energy supplies. Continue reading »
Angry Brides – for good reason
You have to hand it to Shaadi.com, an Indian dating website calling itself “The World’s Largest Matrimonial Service”.
Its latest creation, Angry Brides, is undoubtedly a marketing ploy – and, in terms of video game production values, a pretty cheesy one. But while delivering a slap with a flip-flop (or worse) to dowry-hungry bridegrooms, it also delivers a hefty punch. Its message – slightly garbled in its own blurb – concerns “dowry death”, a gruesome practice under which, if official numbers are correct, 8,391 women died in 2010. That’s one woman immolated an hour, almost every hour of the year. Continue reading »
African beer: brewing returns
In a torrid 2011, many equity investors in sub-Saharan Africa were left nursing painful hangovers.
No so, however, traders in brewery stocks. Brewers celebrated stellar returns over the past year – and, according to a research note from Exotix, look set to toast more good news to come. With an eye on burgeoning domestic demand, analyst Andy Gboka was very bullish on a trio of companies in the sector, based in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Continue reading »
UBS on EM equity: where you’ve made money or lost it, and how that will change
EM investors have made a lot of money in the Philippines and Thailand since mid-2009, and lost a lot in China, India and Brazil. In UBS’s chart of the day for Tuesday (reproduced after the break), Jonathan Anderson explains why this has happened and why – in some cases – it may be about to change. Continue reading »
Hungary: Brussels in court threat [updated]
The last thing a man floundering in stormy waters needs is a legal argument with the lifeboat captain. But that’s what Hungary faced on Tuesday with the European Commission launching dispute procedures against Budapest over new measures on the central bank, data protection and judicial appointments.
The danger is that if Brussels pushes ahead with legal action, that could delay Hungary’s efforts to start negotiations with the Commission and the International Monetary Fund over a financial rescue programme. Continue reading »
New York headlines
* S&P downgrades eurozone bail-out fund
* China fourth-quarter GDP grows 8.9%
* Egypt asks IMF for $3.2bn standby facility
* Beijing appoints Wukan protest leader as official Continue reading »
[video] Can Made in China stay competitive?
While rising wages and tightening credit lines have led some manufacturers to move outside southern China, others are choosing stay and move up the value chain to remain competitive. Josh Noble visits two factories that have been operating in Guangdong for over 30 years to find out how they are shifting up market.
Further reading: going heavy
Tuesday’s picks from the beyondbrics team: A potential breakthrough in China’s handling of dissent?; hopes for an easing of pressure on Iran’s film industry; Turkey’s souring relations with its neighbours; on the handsome profits direct investing in emerging markets can reap; and the challenges of putting on the West’s first big exhibition of the haj at the British Museum Continue reading »
For sale in India: football’s Expendables
Wanted: semi-retired international footballers.
Minimum salary: a cool $600,000.
Job description: play football in West Bengal… for 7 weeks.
In a plot line that sits somewhere between Escape to Victory and The Expendables, India is making a fresh bid to bring football to the masses. Continue reading »
China growth: still up in the air
So much for a hard landing – in fact, so much for any landing at all. China’s economy grew 8.9 per cent year on year in the fourth quarter, comfortably faster than market expectations, and just a whisker below the third quarter’s 9.1 per cent pace.
But the figure is, of course, for the entire quarter. The finer-grained picture from a monthly breakdown shows that the Chinese economy is indeed on the descent. Continue reading »
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