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

Tag: regulation

Hong Kong’s commodities ambitions: backfiring?

May 22, 2013 3:41pm by Lydia Guo
Share
Share this on

The troubled Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange looks unlikely to be back in business any time soon. With regulators and the Hong Kong police opening separate investigations – followed quickly by three arrests on Tuesday night – the fledgling futures exchange may have done itself irreparable damage. Hong Kong’s financial sector will be very keen indeed to ensure the damage is restricted to HKMEx itself. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China |

Beijing promises to get tough on heath food industry

May 22, 2013 11:43am by Helena Hu
Share
Share this on

The China Food and Drug Administration has promised to get tough on health foods before, with little result. This time, it seems, it is serious.

The recently-reformed CFDA has promised a five-month campaign from May to September to crack down on illegal activity in the health food industry, part of a broader drive by authorities to stamp out corruption and unethical business practices. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China |

India takes steps to rein in algos

May 22, 2013 9:51am by Avantika Chilkoti
Share
Share this on

Algos – those complicated and increasing popular beasts – have proved a headache for financial regulators the world over.

India’s financial market regulator is trying to bring them further under control. As of May 27, algorithmic trading systems in the country will be audited every six months and stock exchanges will have powers to suspend and penalise traders who don’t take action to ensure their systems comply with requirements. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, India |

The fall of HKMEx and what it means for Hong Kong’s commodities dreams

May 20, 2013 2:46pm by Lydia Guo
Share
Share this on

The sudden blow-up of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx) not only represents the collapse of a commercial proposition. It is also a warning call to Hong Kong’s ambition to develop itself as a commodities trading centre. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, China |

China’s protesters: winning battles?

May 17, 2013 12:30pm by Patti Waldmeir
Share
Share this on

Even in China, David sometimes beats Goliath – though it’s sometimes hard to be sure.

This week, residents of Songjiang – a suburb of Shanghai which has gained fame around the world for having over 10,000 dead pigs floating in its water supply – found that though they could not vanquish the porcine invader, they had scared away an intruder from the corporate world. Shanghai Guoxuan High-Tech Power Energy company said it was abandoning plans for a battery factory in Songjiang, after residents protested on the streets and on the internet against it. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, China |

China: broker to compensate investors after IPO company’s misleading claims

May 13, 2013 2:52pm by Lydia Guo
Share
Share this on

Where can investors seek compensation in China if they think they have been cheated in a public stock offering?

Until now it’s been the company itself or its controlling shareholders. But in the case of aggrieved investors in Wanfu Biotechnology (Hunan) Agricultural Development the authorities have created a new option – the sponsoring broker. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in China |

Chinese SOEs and “invisible benefits”

May 13, 2013 1:07pm by Julie Zhu
Share
Share this on

Chinese people are used to hearing about the extraordinary benefits enjoyed by employees of big state-owned enterprises. But the size and scope of such benefits still delivered a shock when the National Audit Office released its annual reports on 10 SOEs and further exposed the extent of the problem.

Among the 10 were China Mobile, China Huaneng Group, China Publishing Group and other SOEs and, notably, their subsidiaries. They were found to have violated financial regulations by offering staff a variety of “invisible benefits”, according to audit reports for 2012 on the NAO’s website. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China, Global |

BMW latest target in India’s tax push

May 9, 2013 9:27am by Avantika Chilkoti
Share
Share this on

The Indian government has for some time been clamping down on tax evasion by big multinationals, chasing up on everything from fictional factories to complicated accounting tricks as it tries to shore up the country’s troubled finances.

Now it’s BMW’s turn under the lens. The German car maker is under investigation after reports that it owes import duties of as much as $120m. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Asia, India |

CSR in the Philippines: do-gooding or back-scratching?

May 9, 2013 8:50am by Roel Landingin
Share
Share this on

Like many management buzz words, corporate social responsibility has come to mean many things to many people. But if a bit of business do-gooding is required by the authorities as a condition, say, for granting a local government permit, is it still CSR? Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, Philippines |

EFG-Hermes and QInvest: what really happened?

May 6, 2013 9:44am by Camilla Hall
Share
Share this on

When a big deal falls apart, finger-pointing is rarely far behind.

But in the case of the failed bid by Qatari government-backed QInvest to create a joint venture with Egyptian investment-bank EFG-Hermes, Egypt’s market regulator certainly has a thing or two to learn about tact. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Africa, Egypt, MidEast, Qatar |

Ukraine’s TVi in murky takeover

Apr 26, 2013 2:27pm by beyondbrics
Share
Share this on

By Graham Stack of bne

TVi, a Ukrainian television channel seen as a last bastion for opposition voices and critical investigative reporting, has fallen victim to a murky hostile takeover that it is feared may lead to its muzzling. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Ukraine |

CP All and Siam Makro: Stock Exchange of Thailand to take a close look

Apr 25, 2013 10:39am by Gwen Robinson
Share
Share this on

Tens of millions of Thai baht worth of stock trades later, the shoe has finally dropped: the Stock Exchange of Thailand is launching a probe into share price movements of cash-and-carry retailer Siam Makro ahead of Monday’s $6.6bn takeover offer by CP All, the country’s biggest convenience store operator.

As beyondbrics noted, the market was buzzing with rumours for weeks before the announcement. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, Thailand |

Indonesian mining policy: backtracking elegantly

Apr 19, 2013 8:08am by Ben Bland
Share
Share this on

When is a new policy not a new policy? When it’s introduced by the Indonesian government, which has a tendency to rush out new measures with minimal consultation, sparking protests from those affected and eventually leading officials to backtrack with all the elegance of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

Uganda vs Heritage: what’s the score?

Apr 4, 2013 6:36pm by Andrew Bowman
Share
Share this on

After coming out on top against Heritage Oil in a tax appeal tribunal at home, the Ugandan Revenue Authority claims to be winning the away leg in London as it chases the Jersey-based company for a tax bill of $435m.

Heritage disputes the claim, and says the arbitration is still at a preliminary phase. A swift conclusion seems unlikely, but the case signals a determination on the part of the Ugandan government to ensure it gets a cut of the spoils in its nascent oil industry, and underlines the risks facing investors.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Africa, Uganda |

Virgin looks to take on America Movil in Colombia

Apr 3, 2013 7:32pm by Andres Schipani
Share
Share this on

Ding, ding, ding. Get ready to rumble.

Sir Richard Branson, the airline to mobile phone billionaire, has landed in Colombia with the launch on Wednesday of his Virgin Mobile services in the country.

The move will pit Sir Richard against Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man and who through his flagship company, América Móvil, dominates the telecoms sector in Latin America. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Colombia, LatAm |
BackOlder entries

BB: time to register

Dear beyondbrics readers,

After more than three years of fully open access, we are taking the step of asking our readers to register on FT.com to read our articles. Beyondbrics will still be free but we'd like to know a bit more about you, our readers. Other FT blogs (including Alphaville) already do the same thing. Registration is active on beyondbrics from May 6.

Many of you are already registered on FT.com, or are subscribers - in which case, if you are logged in to the site you will not notice any difference. Just carry on as before.

For those of you not yet registered, it's a simple process which only takes a few moments.

Reading beyondbrics articles will NOT deduct from your free monthly quota of stories on FT.com.

Many thanks

Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor

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.

beyondbrics

The emerging markets hub

About this blog Headlines email Blog guide
News and comment from more than 40 emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China.



'Like' our beyondbrics Facebook page, where we showcase a top story of the day
Sign up for our news headlines and markets snaphot service. We have two emails per day - London and New York headlines (sent at approx 6am and 12pm GMT).

Pretty much everything you need to know about beyondbrics is in our About this site page. But briefly:

To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments.

There is an overall beyondbrics RSS feed, as well as feeds for all our countries, tags and authors. Learn more in our full RSS guide.

All posts are published in UK time.

Get in touch with us - your comments, advice and even complaints. Find out how to contact the team.

See the full list of FT blogs.

BB shortcuts

Regulars Series Archive
Chart of the week
Behind the numbers

Corporate watch
A regular in-depth look at a significant emerging market-based company

The Weekender
Catch up with the week in emerging markets
Hello 2013
Guest posts on the outlook for the year ahead

2012 review
Quiz, charts, most read and more

BB review
An occasional series reviewing books and arts from around the beyondbrics world

Brics at 10
A decade of growth
12 for 2012
Guest writer predictions
2011 review
The year in numbers
The Diaspora Digest
EM diasporas, seen through their community media (Oct-Nov 2011)
Sick brics (Sep 2011)
Brics and mortar (Aug 2011)
Beyondbrics on the beach (Jul-Aug 2011)
China bubble? (June 2011)
Post-election Nigeria (June 2011)
Hey bric spender (Aug 2010)

Emerging markets data

Archive

« AprMay 2013
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031