In an era where a global financial crisis has been caused not by developments in Russia, South-East Asia or Argentina, but by banking insolvency in the United States and sovereign default risks in a eurozone member state, namely Greece, our panel of senior commentators discusses what it means to be an ‘emerging market’. Justin Patrie, [Read more...]

 

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Russia is currently in the midst of a political transition that has already seen or will soon see several veteran regional leaders retire. Until 2004, Russia’s regions had direct elections for presidents and governors, as is the case in the US. However, after the Beslan school siege in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, [Read more...]

Most people are well aware that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries are big recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI). But they are also big sources of FDI.

In 2009, for the first time, emerging market outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&A) flows outpaced inbound M&A flows, reaching US$131.8bn, according to Dealogic. Most of these [Read more...]

China’s decision to tighten monetary policy on January 12 and weak corporate earnings reports out of the US have put a damper on bullish equity sentiment in Europe. That said, I still think upside momentum can carry further on a tactical basis. Two markets I particularly like are the Russian RTS and Polish WIG20. With [Read more...]

The Circassians are shaping up to be another headache for the Kremlin in the North Caucasus. President Dmitri Medvedev recently described rising violence in the region as Russia’s biggest domestic problem. Not long after that, bombs exploded on the Moscow-St Petersburg Nevsky Express train, killing at least 25 people. Chechen separatist rebels were quick to [Read more...]

There’s been renewed speculation about the 2012 Russian presidential election of late, with both incumbent Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin both hinting that they could run. If both do so, then there could be a genuinely competitive race for the first time since 1996.

The Medvedev-Putin double-act was always a bit awkward. Putin only [Read more...]

Reports that US President Barack Obama will overhaul a plan to build a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland would appear to represent a major foreign policy shift on Washington’s part, given that the shield was eagerly championed by the Bush administration. The official explanation for Obama’s shift is that Iran’s missiles [Read more...]