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Latin America: CVRD

Which economic bloc is going to perform best this year, Europe or North America? The consensus is that the US is heading for very low growth, say under 2%, while Europe will do better, with 2.5% at least.

Asia: Kamco

US: Wells Fargo

Western Europe: Alfa Laval

What do you get if you take a room of 150 foreign exchange professionals and quiz them on their favourite subject? The answer is a surprising number of wrong answers. At Euromoney's annual FX awards dinner in London last month, banks pitted their wits against each other in teams of 10, under the auspices of quizmaster Magnus Magnusson. Only one came anywhere close to getting full marks, so close, in fact that rivals insisted they must be the luckiest of guessers. As for the rest, not a single team knew the date of the UK's black Wednesday - September 16 1992. One of the leading American FX banks thought the currency of Ethiopia was the pound (it's the birr), and drew a blank on Kazakhstan (tenge). As if that wasn't bad enough, the closing rate of euro against the dollar on the previous day also momentarily escaped them. They did manage to recall who finished top of Euromoney's first foreign exchange poll in 1969 however.

In early May, Katsuyuki Sugita, president of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (DKB) and co-CEO of the newly created Mizuho Bank, returned to duty from sick leave. He made all the right noises to staff that he was fighting fit - "full of power and energy" - and ready to play a full part in the next stage of the merger of DKB, Fuji Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ).

Issuer: People’s Republic of China Amount: $1 billion and e550 million Types of deal: Eurobonds Date: May 17 2001 Bookrunners: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley (for dollars) and Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank (euros)

The pace of yen borrowing in international markets and in the Japanese domestic market by non-Japanese issuers has slowed just slightly in 2001, following last year’s boom. Downgrades of some large corporate issues have meant losses for Japanese buyers. But foreign names are still issuing yen bonds in healthy volumes and will continue to do so for as long as Japanese investors are deprived of attractive domestic alternatives.

With the domestic economy still in a weak state, Japanese corporates are reluctant to go to the relatively expensive international bond markets for funding. Domestic borrowing is cheaper, particularly as banks are being encouraged by the government to lend on easy terms despite the hangover of bad debt. Only the highest rated Japanese borrowers are raising funds in international markets.

Iceland’s economy has boomed since joining the European Economic Area in 1993 brought market-based reforms. The economy has diversified, but now the government wants to rein growth in. That’s hit the stock market.

There has been a spate of investment-grade companies getting downgraded to junk, or even default status over the past 18 months, but to see the triple-A-rated securitized bonds of what was an investment-grade company at the start of 2000 hit the ropes is something new and more shocking.