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Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Author: Antony Currie

Author: David Roche

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Climbing Steadily From Behind

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

A year on from the Basque separatists' ceasefire and the region is booming, led by Bizkaia, largest of the three Basque provinces. Its capital city, Bilbao, is upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the huge numbers of visitors to the new Guggenheim Museum. It's attracting international banks and technology companies, partly thanks to favourable tax rates. But Madrid is contesting these. Meanwhile ETA extremists remain a threat. Jules Stewart reports.

Greece has come a long way in a short time. The economy looks good and business is booming. But is there a danger of declaring victory while the battle is still raging? Greeks are starting to argue that Greece is different and that excessive stock market valuations are justified. Many other countries have done the same in the past and lived to regret it. Brian Caplen reports.

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

The World Bank's mission is to alleviate poverty by channelling resources to developing nations - but without displacing the private sector. Instead, over the last seven years, it has concentrated on heavily subsidized financing for countries with ready access to private capital. 70% of its non-aid resources went to 11 nations - equal to an insignificant 1% of private sector flows. Funding for countries without international ratings dropped from 40% to less than 1%. Adam Lerrick argues that the Bank must transform itself from a capital-intensive lender into the designer of an intellectual infrastructure for the emerging world.