February 2008

  China International and domestic banks are spreading the net ever wider in their efforts to bring financial services to China’s increasingly wealthy population.     China has outdone itself. The country’s economy grew by 11.5% in the first three ...

ANNUAL SURVEY/ BEST TRADE FINANCE BANKS Trade finance banks are providing ever-more diverse and innovative services as world trade continues to expand.         On January 1, 2008, the multilateral trading system reached its 60th anniversary. Any celebrating ...

Dr News       Beijing-based Baidu.com, China’s leading Internet search provider, was the most actively traded depositary receipt in the world last year, according to The Bank of New York Mellon’s annual year-end report on the DR industry. In ...

News The lure of potentially high returns at lower prices than the big emerging markets is attracting value-seeking institutional investors to smaller “frontier” markets such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Angola and Mongolia. “To me, China and Hong Kong are expensive, but ...

Company To Watch: Tata Motors/india Mumbai-based Tata Motors, which is trying to buy Ford Motor’s premier Jaguar and Land Rover brands, unveiled the world’s cheapest car, the $2,500 Nano, at the Auto Expo in New Delhi in January. Dubbed the ...

Brazil       Mantega: Hiking other taxes will make up for shortfall.       With Brazilian legislators scrapping the country’s financial transactions tax (CPMF) in December, the government says it must now plug a 40 billion real ($22 ...

Russia       Putin: Maintains a tight grip on Russian politics.       After months of uncertainty, the Russian political landscape began to take shape in December. After being anointed by president Vladimir Putin as his successor early ...

China       Morgan Stanley: Subprime losses have been plugged by China Investment Corp.       China will allow foreign brokerage firms to play stronger roles in the country’s securities markets, according to new guidelines that took effect ...

India       Tata Motors' new Nano: Launch triggered a sell-off in India's auto sector.       Tata Motors, one of India’s largest domestic truck and passenger car makers, unveiled a car for India’s domestic market priced at ...

COUNTRY REPORT / RUSSIA Having hand picked his successor as Russian president, Vladimir Putin has assured the country there will be a smooth transition of power. How much power he will retain remains in question.   Oil has filled Russia's ...

CANADA When Canada’s dollar reached parity with the US dollar, it was cause for national celebration. For the country’s corporations, still reeling from the credit crunch, the muscular currency is a very mixed blessing.         In recent ...

China     Filling up: China’s consumers may face shortages soon. While the Chinese horoscope attributes such auspicious qualities as intelligence, charisma and compassion to those born in the Year of the Rat, which begins on February 7, economists are ...

Nicaragua     Guevara: Deal will put an end to lawsuits. When Nicaragua offered commercial creditors a 95.5% haircut on $1.4 billion in commercial debt as part of a workout, the deal appeared to be more of a scalping. Yet ...

Peru     Lessons learned? Investors will be looking closely at the assets behind Peru’s mortgage-backed securities. While most global markets are seeking to shield themselves from shockwaves emanating from the US subprime home loan and residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) ...

Global Equity/drs Records galore toppled in the depositary receipt market in 2007, and DR liquidity, prices and capital raising likely will continue to be strong in 2008, as growth continues in the big emerging market economies of Brazil, Russia, India ...

Corporate Debt While money market pressures appear to be slowly receding, worries about a possible US recession that could trigger a surge in corporate defaults are moving to the fore for 2008. “If round one of the current credit crisis ...

Mergers & Acquisitions     Cross-border mergers and acquisitions accounted for a record 47% of worldwide M&A; transactions in 2007, as global consolidation continued to drive merger activity in the materials, financials, and energy and power sectors, according to Thomson ...

Foreign Exchange With the US economy nearing a recession, if it hasn’t already entered one, the Federal Reserve will continue cutting interest rates in the months ahead, likely leading to further losses in the already beat-up dollar, analysts say. The ...

United Kingdom       Davy: Scrapping computers is a huge resource drain       Businesses are facing increasing pressure to consider the environmental impact of their IT purchasing habits as awareness grows of the vast amount of natural ...

United States     Gardner: More companies are signing up to going green. Global investors, institutions and corporates are increasingly looking to improve their sustainability profile, according to a report by the Worldwatch Institute released in January. The report, State ...

Canada       Carney: Taking control at a difficult time.       Mark Carney took the reins as governor of the Bank of Canada from David Dodge on February 1, at a time when the central bank has ...

Palestinian Territories     After decades of war, Palestinians are trying to revive a flagging economy. While media attention is focused on the attempts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, work has been quietly going on ...