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The Korean government wants to sell Seoul Bank to a blue-chip foreign strategic investor. But the likes of HSBC aren’t interested. So how far should the government compromise and maybe encourage a private-equity fund? The problem is that in the run-up to an election, the government is hemmed in by the favourable deal it struck with Newbridge, which was widely ridiculed by the local media.

The reform of Russia’s electricity sector is going faster than that of other utilities. UES chief executive Anatoly Chubais talked to Ben Aris about the proposals and the timetable

ING’s unique approach to the provision of financial services has placed it among the pioneers.

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.

Some banks are looking beyond central and eastern Europe’s emerging economies for ways to gain scale.

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

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.

On August 13, the two-year versus 30-year US treasury yield curve gapped out to a seven-year high of 184 basis points. The two-year treasury was trading at its lowest ever yield in the 25 years since the two-year security was first introduced, and three-month Libor was even lower at 3.57%. Moreover, with the US economy showing no signs of recovery, short-end rates seem set to move even tighter. The extraordinary steepness of the US yield curve has provided mouthwatering swap opportunities for corporates that would not normally consider conversion of fixed-rate liabilities to floating rate. The greater than normal swap business has also put added downward pressure on swap spreads.

Most of the prize assets have been snapped up as bank privatization draws to an end in Europe’s emerging markets. Those banks that remain on offer are getting more pricey. But impending European Union accession for several countries means this is still an appealing market and is driving strategic change among both veteran players and big-spending newcomers.

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

David Malpass, chief international economist at Bear Stearns, in a speech last month to the National Economists Club in Washington outlines the view that the world economy is entering a long, "saucer-shaped" slowdown. The nub of the problem is deflation, reckons Malpass. The flip side of the greenback's repeated 10% year-on-year gains is a drop in commodity prices of roughly the same amount. That's going to result in hard knocks for many economies.