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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.

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

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.

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.

For some hard-bitten corporate executives and the more cynical investors, the concept of corporate governance is doubtless too nebulous and idealistic to bother with. But for many it has acquired sufficient substance to serve as Euromoney surveyed companies contained in one or more of the following categories as of June 15 2001:

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.

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.

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

Ben Aris spoke to Arkard Volsky, chairman of the Russian Union for Industrialists & Entrepreneurs about the influential pressure group of top businessmen.

Under James Wolfensohn the World Bank has beaten off influential enemies through polished public relations, but there are still widespread doubts about the effectiveness of Bank policies. Projects continue to fail and adjustment lending has in many cases been granted without proper safeguards. Bank insiders claim that programmes are increasingly effective but critics point to the weakness of Bank models for measuring success.

In an economic downturn, law firms specializing in financial business can ease the pain by establishing relations with their clients that are not strictly based on individual deals. The clients may also benefit.