[Emerging difficulties]: Multinationals, no longer a dirty word in LatAm
Mention the word multinationals in Latin America, and it is hardly surprising that some people still imagine rapacious capitalist monsters kicking aside ethics, laws and even human rights in their insatiable thirst for profit.
In June, Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, said he had evidence that a foreign contractor for an oil company had paid money to illegal armed groups. Continue reading »
[Emerging difficulties]: Pepsi meets Putin
When Donald Kendall, Pepsico’s former chief executive, flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin last year and seal the company’s takeover of Russian dairy group Wimm-Bill-Dann, there was a bit of déjà vu in the air.
Fifty years earlier, Kendall had come to Moscow as a young Pepsico executive and met another Russian leader, Nikita Kruschev – an encounter that paved the way for Pepsico’s entrance into Russia just a couple years later and everything that has come since. Continue reading »
Bahk Jae-wan, South Korea’s finance minister, played to the cameras as he flitted between the colourful stalls of Sooyu market in Seoul last month. Having bought some rashers of pork belly, he logged onto his Facebook page and appealed to his fellow Koreans: “Why not visit a traditional market?”
“Reviving markets for 360,000 merchants at small and medium-sized enterprises is a top policy priority,” said the shirt-sleeved minister, who posed among the pumpkins and cabbages. Continue reading »
When Caterpillar, the world’s largest producer of earth-moving equipment, opened its first joint venture in China in 1994, the country was still among the poorest in the world in terms of gross domestic product per capita, and bicycles, not cars, dominated the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. Fast forward to today, when China is the world’s biggest market for machinery, accounting for about 9 per cent of Caterpillar’s annual revenues.
While many global brands have struggled in China’s consumer sector, Caterpillar has been relatively successful so far in maintaining its grip on China’s premium machinery market. Continue reading »
[Emerging difficulties]: Compelling reasons to increase engagement
Today the FT and beyondbrics open a two-day series on emerging difficulties: the challenges facing companies around the world as they turn to emerging economies to deliver the growth that has become so elusive in the developed world. Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor and editor of beyondbrics, kicks the series off here (see post after the jump) and in the newspaper. Continue reading »
| About this blog | Headlines email | Blog guide |
| Regulars | Series | Archive |
Stefan Wagstyl
Josh Noble
Rob Minto
Pan Kwan Yuk
Jonathan Wheatley
Heba Saleh