Amid the noisy clatter of mezze plates being laid down inside a west Beirut restaurant, a woman lights up a cigarette, periodically resting it in one of the ashtrays that are placed on each table.
Six months in, such violations of Lebanon’s smoking ban are becoming an increasingly common sight. Continue reading »
Kumbh Mela: worth learning from
In India, there are just nine hospital beds for every 10,000 people; 626m people are forced to defecate in the open for want of sanitary facilities; and local investors are looking abroad to escape unpredictable regulation and unreliable infrastructure at home.
And yet, when religion and revelry are at stake, this same country can pull it together and host the 55-day Maha Kumbh Mela festival, where 9m pilgrims are provided with all the shelter and services they need. Continue reading »
Baijiu: China’s latest health scare
Baijiu, the fiery Chinese liquor that has been around for thousands of years and is today a fast-growing multi-billion-dollar industry, has become the focus of China’s latest food and drink health scare. Continue reading »
Russia: smoking bans in the pipeline
Russia is finally getting tough on tobacco with a new law that will ban smoking in public places by January 1, 2015 and increase taxes on cigarettes by as much as eight times over the same period.
In a video blog released on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the government would go ahead with the measures despite complaints from foreign tobacco producers, who managed to carve out a niche in Russia at a time when European and US sales were plummeting. Continue reading »
Actis invests in Sri Lankan hospitals
Actis, the emerging markets private equity fund, has invested $32m in Asiri Hospital Holdings, a private hospital chain in Sri Lanka with five hospitals under its umbrella.
Asiri will use the proceeds to buy out minority shareholders in some of those hospitals as it prepares for further expansion in the country. The deal again underlines Sri Lanka’s appeal to foreign investors, attracted by sustained GDP growth of 7 per cent a year against a backdrop of economic downturn in the west. Continue reading »
Santos’s cancer: transparency in action
Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos’s surprise admission on Monday evening that he has prostate cancer should not be a major scare for the country. The prognosis is good – he says that because it was discovered early, he has a 97 per cent chance of being totally cured. The treatment will take place this week and he will be able to “continue to exercise my functions as president”, albeit with some travel restrictions.
Aside from its own intrinsic importance, though, the news illuminates three other fascinating trends in the region. Continue reading »
Gulf countries confront bulging waistlines
This Ramadan, Gulf residents received text messages with fasting tips to caution against overeating. The problem of expanding waistlines, however, is far from seasonal.
Kuwait, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain all figure on the list of the world’s top ten most obese nations. Seventy-seven per cent of Kuwaitis are overweight and 34 per cent are obese, putting the tiny country just behind the US, according to the latest research based on UN and World Health Organization data.
But as the obesity epidemic spread across the Persian Gulf, so too has another American phenomenon – the rise of the weight loss cottage industry. Continue reading »
Emerging market pharma spending to nearly double by 2016
Emerging markets will nearly double their spending on medicine over the next five years from $194bn in 2011 to $345-375bn in 2016, say healthcare analysts at IMS Health in a report on Thursday.
The Global use of Medicines: Outlook through 2016, says the expected rise comes from a combination of increasing income levels, the increased affordability of medicines and the roll-out of government healthcare programmes for poorer patients. Continue reading »
Malnutrition: why EMs should care
Discussion on emerging market growth usually centres on how factors such as inflation, industrial production or even corruption can affect the economies of these countries.
However, a report released this week offers a timely reminder at how malnutrition, an obvious symptom of poverty, is eroding the economic prospects of developing nations, from India and Bangladesh to Peru and Nigeria, which are only just recovering after the fall-out of the financial crisis. Continue reading »
The underbelly of Chinese New Year
It will come as no surprise that last week’s Chinese New Year holiday was a good one for luxury goods retailers worldwide, with Chinese spending $7.2bn overseas on their much-loved luxe (up 28.6 per cent from the holiday week in 2011, according to Chinese newspapers). Within China, retail sales were up 16 per cent from last year, to Rmb470bn.
But the Chinese press, which spent much of the past week dissecting various behaviours relating to the lunar new year holiday, found that all was not bling in the spring festival sales: this year there was a tendency to rent rather than buy cars; to travel rather than buy property – and, for that matter, to travel rather than buy a refrigerator. Continue reading »
Obesity: Mexico’s unwanted growth
How much does it cost to be fat? To get an idea, just cast a glance at Mexico’s rapidly growing waistline.
Latin America’s second-biggest economy now has the world’s second-highest level of obesity, at a staggering 24.2 per cent of the population. Add that fact to the number of people considered overweight, and Mexico shoots to the top of the world ranking with more than 70 per cent of the adult population suffering weight problems. Continue reading »
China: $520m medical equipment deal
With Chinese people demanding better healthcare as their incomes rise, and Beijing backing the expansion of medical services, domestic and foreign companies alike are trying to grab a slice of the action.
This week Singapore-listed Biosensors and Shandong Wei Gao, a mainland medical equipment company, announced a S$646m (US$ 522m) plan to deepen their ties. Continue reading »
Shanghai Pharma prices HK listing
While Chinese internet companies have been rushing to list in New York, and Chinese banks are set to raise billions with issues on the mainland this year, there’s one sector that looks rather underrepresented in the equity issuance whirlwind – healthcare.
Shanghai Pharma – which announced the pricing of its Hong Kong IPO on Monday – may benefit from a dearth of new options for those looking for a slice of China’s healthcare boom. Continue reading »
Beijing: thank you for not smoking?
China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of tobacco and revenues from tobacco sales by state-owned monopoly China Tobacco Corporation make up around 7 per cent of the Beijing’s tax income.
That’s one reason why some people could be forgiven for having doubts about how serious the Chinese government is about imposing a ban on all smoking in indoor public places by May 1 this year. Continue reading »
Shanghainese: living longer than Canadians?
People in Shanghai are already China’s richest. On a GDP per person basis – at almost $23,000 a year – the Shanghainese are on a par with residents of Saudi Arabia. They also have the highest minimum wages – boosted on Thursday by a further 14 per cent increase. Shanghai workers must now be paid at least Rmb1,280 ($195) a month.
And there’s more good news. Shanghai residents are also living longer. Longer, apparently, than Canadians. Continue reading »
| About this blog | Headlines email | Blog guide |
| Regulars | Series | Archive |
Older entries
Stefan Wagstyl
Rob Minto
Pan Kwan Yuk
Jonathan Wheatley
Heba Saleh