Equity buyers are increasingly basing investment decisions on companies’ records on corporate governance as well as on projected real shareholder returns. The challenge for investors is to measure and reward good corporate governance practice as readily as they have criticized bad corporate governance in the past. Euromoney offers its own contribution, with a new corporate governance ranking and also reproduces analyses by banks. For investors and companies, especially in emerging markets, new rules of engagement are being drawn up. Kapila Monet reports, research by Andrew Newby

Saudi Arabia has demonstrated strong growth in the midst of the falling global economy, and that growth can be attributed to more than just oil. Natural gas and tourism also have contributed to this boom, but it is unclear whether Saudi Arabia can generate enough jobs for its growing population.

The largest banks in Latin America are in its largest economies, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Consolidation has created large conglomerates through in-market mergers and acquisition of local franchises by international powerhouses. By Celina Vansetti, data from Moody’s Investors Service

The aura of calm efficiency surrounding the new Indonesian administration of president Megawati Soekarnoputri has come as a relief to most Indonesians. After nearly four years of riots, coup rumours, unpredictable policymaking and political infighting, a rest is as good as a holiday.

Investors fearful that the crisis in Argentina might spill over into the largest Latin American economy, Brazil, generally draw some comfort from the fact that the country’s central bank is led by former speculator Arminio Fraga. Fraga, who took up his post just after the floating of the real in 1999, has implemented an inflation-targeting system, enhanced bank supervision, and garnered universal respect and admiration. Brazil might have been hit by Argentina, but now the country should be seen as a turnaround story, he tells Felix Salmon

General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's head of state, talks about his country's economic programme, the Afghan Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism.

Saudi Arabia’s banks are bracing for a period of intense retail competition by preparing to launch new products, especially for Islamic and internet banking, and developing personal and mortgage lending.

Even after China has joined the World Trade Organization, there will be a grace period of five years before foreign banks can compete head-on with local banks. But that still represents an ambitious timetable for reform. There has been progress, but the sheer scale of China’s banking system, the need to adopt new accounting standards and the number of bad loans present hurdles.

When international rating agencies announced a negative outlook on India's sovereign rating in early August, the equity and bond markets barely reacted.

Argentina is looking at the worst case of deflation that the world has seen since the US great depression in the 1930s, and it is hard to see where the necessary boosts in confidence and growth are going to come from to break this confidence crisis.

Strong-arm tactics haven’t entirely disappeared from Russia’s industrial consolidation process but the most successful companies are increasingly ploughing ahead by using gentler methods.

World Bank president James Wolfensohn responds to the many criticisms being thrown at the institution, points to some of its recent achievements and outlines a vision of how it might work in future.

KBC demonstrates just what happens when deep pockets are used to address pressing commercial imperatives.

There are few bigger jobs in finance than US Treasury undersecretary for international affairs. So meet John Taylor, the former academic economist who finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world will be courting for the next few years. Taking time out from the negotiations over Argentina he delivers some tough messages on official sector financing packages: they should come with fewer conditions, but those conditions should be strictly monitored and enforced, before funds are disbursed. He offers to share useful experience with Japan, expresses confidence in the European single currency project and explains to James H Smalhout why the US current account deficit is sustainable

Russia has done little to reform a banking sector that is still littered with hundreds of thinly capitalized and barely functioning institutions. But there are some signs of improvement. A stronger economy has made it more attractive for the larger commercial banks to start lending to Russian companies. It’s a new game for them.

The swing of the political pendulum in the US has had an equal and opposite reaction in Europe. In the 1990s, under the post-cold war order of transatlantic relations, Bill Clinton's centre-left US administration promoted its own brand of caring capitalism. Inflation was banished, the world economy grew strongly and financial markets soared.

Years from now, the banking crisis of today will probably be seen as the beginning of a period when market dominance started to pass to foreign hands.

The Fed has dscovered the gift of the gab, and it doesn't seem to have done any harm. Not yet, anyway.

Bulgaria’s new government is preparing to enter the Eurobond markets to reduce its debt service costs. The country’s strong recovery from the banking collapse and economic setbacks of 1996 and 1997, its recent currency stability and commitment to EU convergence should win it a strong reception among investors. But concerns persist over the credibility of the government’s ambitions to balance the budget, cut taxes and increase spending all at the same time.

Banks in the UAE have been tardy about consolidation and rationalization, relying on the benefits of continuing high oil prices. Now, though, they face the challenges of money-laundering investigators and impending WTO financial sector liberalization.

This summer the euro began to strengthen, the European Central Bank pleased markets and politicians with a long-awaited quarter-point rate cut and criticism of the policy conduct of the ECB receded. It may be time for a new assessment of how the bank has been doing. Clearly it has inherited flaws from the political compromises made to set it up. Is it in such a hopeless state that mistakes will happen again, or were past errors excusable gaffes in an otherwise reasonably successful performance?

The Paris Club of official bilateral creditors is promoting the view that holders of sovereign bonds should take their share of the burdens when borrowers need rescuing from default. Jerome Booth argues that this burden-sharing dogma flies in the face of insights that can be gleaned from history and conflates what is essentially politically-motivated lending with market-driven lending. It will, he argues, inevitably damage the debtors it is ostensibly designed to help

Despite the dire state of the Japanese economy, yen-denominated issues have maintained their popularity, providing borrowers useful diversity and a domestic investor base hungry for yield.

Lars Thunell, president of SEB, in which Investor has a large stake, explains its strategy

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz is single-handedly staging an economic revolution in Pakistan, selling yet another military government to a sceptical international investor community.

It is over a year since president Vladimir Putin moved to bring unruly Russian regional governors to heel, but it is still unclear whether the system of federal districts he introduced will help or hinder foreign investors intrepid enough to venture into Russia.

The tango effect is being felt in the international bond and currency markets and in the halls of the central bank in Brasilia, but so far it has had relatively little effect on the average Brazilian.

Russia’s vast utilities are gravely afflicted. In desperate need of investment to rebuild worn-out plant and distribution networks, they are also drained of income because of uneconomic pricing and persistent corruption. Ben Aris reports on the progress of restructuring

The number and variety of regional and municipal issuers tapping the international markets continues to grow steadily. Central governments across the Americas, Americasand emerging markets want to devolve financial responsibility. The degree of sovereign support varies.

Pakistan has gone a long way towards stabilizing the economy under its present government, greatly improving the balance-of-payments situation and increasing revenues from taxation: all policies that make multilateral aid a much more practicable proposition. From this base, the government hopes to put in place strategies that will encourage growth, with rationalization of the banking sector and privatization high on the agenda.