LatAm dim sums: more to come?
Dim sum acquired a distinctly Latin flavour last week after America Movil took the plunge into the off-shore renminbi debt market with a RMB1bn ($158m) issue.
The issue, a first for Latin America, is a long time coming and underscores the deepening ties between the two regions.
But while the issue from the Mexican telecom giant is certainly ground breaking and provides a huge fillip to the nascent dim sum bond market, don’t expect a rush of LatAm corporates to follow suit. Continue reading »
Growth outlook: not too shabby
Businesses in Mexico are picking up their spending on capital goods. At least that is one of the conclusions of figures published Tuesday, which show that gross fixed investment rose 1 per cent in November compared with October, and 6.7 per cent compared with a year earlier.
The data, reported by Inegi, Mexico’s national statistics office, and which give a lagging indicator of spending on machinery, equipment and new construction, are encouraging. Continue reading »
Twitter’s Brazilian hangover
After a heavy night out in Rio or São Paulo, there’s nothing Brazilians like better than to get on Twitter before heading home.
It’s not to regale their followers with the night’s conquests, though, but to check on the location of the latest police blitzes against drunk driving. On seeing the police in a certain part of town, many Twitter users send out warning messages to other drivers so they can find alternative routes home. Continue reading »
Ryanair vs Budapest: playing dirty?
The battle to acquire airline passengers from Budapest in the wake of last week’s demise of Malev, the former flag carrier, took a strange turn on Tuesday, when the airport and low-cost airline Ryanair clashed over the availability of flight slots.
Ryanair are selling the flights to the public. Budapest airport say they haven’t agreed terms. Result: a big row. Continue reading »
Panama: growing up, growing angry
Panama City has been transformed in recent years into a “Dubai of the Americas”, complete with a Trump Tower – a real-estate boom fuelled by double-digit growth.
But the go-go economic policy of the nation’s president, Ricardo Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon, has suddenly hit trouble in the face of protests. Continue reading »
Poland: selling assets to itself
Poland’s government is becoming increasingly fond of “privatisations” that see state-owned firms sold off to other companies controlled by the government – a way of using sale proceeds to bolster the budget while keeping control of important parts of the economy.
Now Mikolaj Budzanowski, the new treasury minister, has told Puls Biznesu newspaper that Lotos Group, the country’s heavily indebted second largest refiner, may end up being sold to a Polish energy company. Continue reading »
Coca-Cola’s investments in China and other emerging markets are paying off. The world’s largest drinks company on Tuesday disclosed a steep drop in fourth-quarter profits in the absence of one-off gains made in 2011. But it would have been worse without the EMs, as Alan Rappeport reported for ft.com. Continue reading »
Russian Railways: Next stop Borneo
You’d think Russian Railways had its work cut out for it at home upgrading and modernising the country’s aged railroads and rolling stock. But the state monopoly is also planning to extend its international reach as far as Indonesia building a $2.5bn railway for south-east Asia’s biggest (and booming) economy. Continue reading »
[Guest post]: sudden shifts in capital flows – a risk for EM investors
By Manoj Pradhan
Emerging market economies cannot decouple. More importantly, they shouldn’t try to if they want to protect growth. Wondering whether EM economies will decouple is surely pointless when we say in the same breath that markets are rapidly becoming more internationally integrated.
What has changed, however, is the origin and nature of EM crises. Ironically, it is the very success of EM economies in attracting capital inflows and lending from global banks that exposes them to the risk of a sudden shocks should these inflows slow down dramatically, or even reverse. Continue reading »
India aviation gets a fuel lifeline
The embattled Indian aviation industry was handed a lifeline by the Indian government on Tuesday when the aviation minister announced that domestic carriers will be allowed to import jet fuel directly, thereby avoiding hefty sales tax that has helped to drive the companies into debt.
The move – announced by aviation minister Ajit Singh but yet to be approved by the cabinet – sent shares in domestic carriers soaring, with Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and SpiceJet closing up 13.20, 14.48 and 10.98 per cent, respectively, compared to a 0.48 per cent drop in the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark Sensex. Continue reading »
Jerome Booth, head of research at Ashmore Investment Management, argues (in the FT’s Markets Insight) that “there is a strong case that we do not face a plethora of potential large permanent losses from multi-country investing in emerging markets in 2012. We do from investing in the developed world.”
The world this year will continue to be divided into deleveraging developed economies and emerging market economies without excessive debt… The argument for hanging on to outdated and simplistic concepts of risk and to prejudices about emerging markets is driven by hope more than rationality.
New York headlines
* India predicts weakest growth since 2009
* Russian foreign minister arrives in Syria
* Egyptian foreign exchange reserves down to $16.4bn
* China says to defend against EU emissions plan Continue reading »
Egypt: reserves low, tempers high
While Egypt makes headlines with its political crisis and street violence, behind the scenes another danger is lurking: its foreign exchange reserves are shrinking, with another sharp drop last month.
Reserves were down to $16.4bn at the end of January, compared to $18.1bn in December and $36bn in December 2010, just before the anti-Mubarak protests began, according to central bank data published on Tuesday. The pressure for political stability – and an IMF rescue – grows bigger by the day. Continue reading »
Further reading: self interest
Tuesdays picks from the beyondbrics team: Lex on China’s ambivalence towards the eurozone and a regulatory backlash in Indian telecoms; how Africa can refresh the world on the power of markets; politics stunts freedom in India; a diverse opposition united by its loathing of Vladimir Putin; and does billionaire oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov have a real shot at the Russian Presidency? Continue reading »
Indian growth: knocked for six
No surprise, but yet another blow to round out an awful year: India’s economy will grow at its slowest pace in three years in the fiscal year ending in March, according to an outlook released on Tuesday by the government’s central statistics office.
The office revised its estimate for GDP growth for the year to 6.9 per cent – much less than the 9 per cent expected last April and a blow to the rising army of new consumers among the country’s 1.2bn people. Continue reading »
| About this blog | Headlines email | Blog guide |
| Regulars | Series | Archive |
Older entries
Stefan Wagstyl
Josh Noble
Rob Minto
Pan Kwan Yuk
Jonathan Wheatley
Heba Saleh