Highlights
Brazil: mobile signals and mango trees
Samsung Galaxy S4: going the distance
Lane Crawford: bold bets in China
Zenith Bank makes its own way
Chart of the Week: woes of Malaysia’s exporters

Daily Archives: Nov 22, 2012

Venezuela: hard to find the dollars

Nov 22, 2012 11:25pm by Benedict Mander
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Just how merry a lot of Venezuelans will be this Christmas depends to some degree on how many dollars the government decides to make available.

But with currency controls in place since 2003, it is becoming increasingly clear that the government is not terribly inclined to dish out too many dollars just now – only on Thursday the central bank president was forced to declare on national television that one of the official mechanisms for obtaining dollars was not in fact “paralysed”. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in LatAm, Venezuela |

Argentina debt: it’s not just the ruling, it’s the attitude

Nov 22, 2012 10:38pm by Jude Webber
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Argentina’s reaction to Thomas Griesa’s New York court ruling was probably enough to make the octogenarian judge choke on his Thanksgiving turkey.

It was expected that Argentina would promise to fight – but what is surely guaranteed to make the judge’s blood boil was the offended tone Argentina struck. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Argentina, LatAm |

Poland / Euro 2012: cash, not glory

Nov 22, 2012 7:15pm by Jan Cienski
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For Poland, hosting this year’s European football championships was always much more about cash than sporting glory – and the country’s incompetent national side, which exited the tournament with no wins – showed that was a sensible approach.

Just how sensible has been spelled out by PL.2012, the official tournament organiser, and Jakub Borowski, an economist who prepared a report on the financial outcome of the event, showing that Poland earned more than expected from tourists and gained a long-term economic boost from building infrastructure for the tournament. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Poland |

Turkey: hard power sell

Nov 22, 2012 6:43pm by David O'Byrne
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News that Turkey’s Privatisation Authority has postponed the deadline for final bids in the sale of the 1,120 MW Hamitabat power plant from November to January 14 has come as little surprise.

The deadline has already been postponed once, from October 15 and the tender itself is the second attempt to sell the plant, the first having been postponed earlier this year after eliciting only a single bid. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Turkey |

Ryanair in Budapest: good with numbers?

Nov 22, 2012 4:40pm by Kester Eddy
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As beyondbrics reported on Wednesday, Ryanair is to cut ten of its routes into Budapest. The low-cost airline will also reduce frequencies on nine of its remaining 20 routes into the Hungarian capital from January 10, 2013, chief executive Michael O’Leary confirmed on Thursday in Budapest, blaming rising fees imposed by Budapest Airport and the Hungarian Civil Aviation Authority. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Europe, Hungary |

East Africa oil: smaller explorers hit hurdles

Nov 22, 2012 4:31pm by Adam Green
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Independent and small-scale oil companies like to be quick on their feet, beating the energy giants time and again in the exploration race. But in some of Africa’s more promising energy areas, regulatory hurdles and resource nationalism are starting to hold things up. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda |

Dubai: a spot of the old hubris?

Nov 22, 2012 3:10pm by Simeon Kerr
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Dubai has been back for some time. The trade, tourism and transport that are the foundations of its economy have been thriving for a couple of years, bringing an air of optimism back to the city after its 2009 debt crisis.

But now, some fear, the old hubris is back, too. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in MidEast, United Arab Emirates |

South Africa holds rates at 5%

Nov 22, 2012 2:16pm by Rob Minto
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In a widely anticipated decision, South Africa’s Reserve Bank has held its policy interest rate at 5 per cent.

Bank Governor Gill Marcus said the outlook for growth had “deteriorated, while the upside risks to inflation have increased.” Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Africa, South Africa |

SAB Miller: EMs propping up the bar

Nov 22, 2012 1:43pm by Avantika Chilkoti
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Strong sales in emerging markets have propped up SAB Miller’s profits – again – despite the slowdown in the global economy and unfavourable foreign exchange and input costs.

The question is how long will it last? Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Africa, Asia, Colombia, Europe, India, LatAm, Poland, Romania, South Africa |

New York headlines

Nov 22, 2012 11:58am by beyondbrics
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* Argentina told to pay hedge funds $1.3bn

* Sony and Panasonic given junk ratings

* Rothschild backed by Friedland on Bumi Continue reading »

Posted in Global |

Argentina’s sovereign shift

Nov 22, 2012 11:52am by beyondbrics
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A hundred years ago if a country was reluctant to pay its debts, gunboats might have steamed to its shores. Since then sovereign immunity has reigned but the latest development in a legal argument over Argentina’s 2001 defaulted debt could shift the balance toward creditors. Whitney Debevoise, former US executive director of the World Bank, explains to capital markets correspondent Robin Wigglesworth the implications of the US court case on sovereign debt markets.

Tags: , , , Posted in Argentina, LatAm |

China’s retailers on Thanksgiving: thank you very much!

Nov 22, 2012 11:16am by Zhou Ping
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As Americans tuck into their Thanksgiving dinners, Chinese internet users are also sending messages of gratitude online.

Thanksgiving was listed on Thursday as the hottest search word on Sina Weibo, the Chinese microblogging platform, which garnered over 22m posts under a theme to encourage bloggers to say “Xie Xie”. Continue reading »

Posted in China |

Further reading: Turkey with Russian dressing, please

Nov 22, 2012 10:53am by beyondbrics
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Thursday’s picks from the BB team: the private sector drives Russia’s “innovation economy”; Israel cannot bludgeon the Palestinians into submission; and China’s exit from recession has reinforced imbalances. Plus: the new Turkish-Russian nuclear plant as a model for safe energy; interest in Africa’s consumer market; and US-Mexico convergence in incomes. Continue reading »

Posted in Global |

Guest post: the danger in China’s shadow banks and bank-trust products

Nov 22, 2012 9:28am by beyondbrics
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By Ben Simpfendorfer of Silk Road Associates

The Chinese coastal city of Wenzhou is notoriously clannish – especially so since the collapse of the city’s shadow banks. Once a symbol of its boisterous private sector, the number of shadow banks has fallen from a peak of 450 in 2007 to less than 50 today. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China |
From FT.com November 22, 2012

Argentina will have to pay $1.3bn to hedge funds that refused to restructure their debts after the country’s 2001 default when it makes regular payments to its restructured bondholders in December, a US court has ordered.

The ruling, made late on Wednesday in New York, raises the possibility that Argentina will default once more, and if upheld represents a major chink in the armour of sovereign immunity against creditors that has largely reigned in international law for almost a century. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Argentina, LatAm |
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Global equities macromap

Number of the day

-0.2% Fall in Polish retail sales in April, rather worse than 1.1 per cent growth expected.

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