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It was before the wave of strikes that hit France in December that I glided into the Gare du Nord on one of France's ultra-smooth, ultra-expensive (to the taxpayer, not the traveller) TGVs. I had two questions begging answers. First, would the Franco-German axis in Europe hold? And second, would France meet the Maastricht criteria for a European single currency by the end of 1997?

The key to prospects for world growth in 1999 is Japan. I expect the US economy to slow during the year and the core of Europe to grow by less than 2%. So the OECD as a whole is unlikely to achieve even 1% real growth this year unless Japan picks up.

Last month the grain floor at the Chicago Board of Trade voted in a chairman after its own heart. To the big banks trading on the Chicago exchanges it looked like another setback for the modernization they crave. It's not just electronic trading that's at issue, but also cooperation - and possibly mergers - between Chicago's three derivatives exchanges that may prove vital to stave off competition.

So far there's no world-beating example of an internet bank. Euromoney and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) decided to fill the gap in three easy stages. First, drafting the structure. Second, launching a virtual retail bank. Third, diversifying into all areas, to build a veritable Merrill Lynch of the ether. That's the theory. Here's what happened at stage one, as reported by David Shirreff.

As the founding member of one of the strongest and most successful global alliances in the airline industry, KLM is again the first to take leadership in the creation of a global airline system. Today, with a second global partnership in place with Alitalia and a firm business strategy focusing on the company's core activities, the Dutch airline looks set to consolidate its leading market position

It has taken almost two decades of reform but the People's Bank of China (PBOC) believes 1999 will at last see it join the ranks of the world's independent central banks. The big revamp, long-awaited and finally announced towards the end of last year, involves replacing the bank's provincial-level structures with nine regional entities which will answer only to Beijing.

Prospects for the beleagured Mexican banking sector have improved following an agreement on restructuring that many analysts feel goes beyond expectations

Ulrich Gygi is the driving force behind Swiss privatization. He was the chief architect of the Swisscom offering, Europe's biggest initial public offering (IPO) last year, which succeeded when most other deals were being pulled. As head of the Swiss treasury, where he's spent most of his career, Gygi has also had the task of deciding how much gold the central bank can afford to give away to good causes in the aftermath of the Nazi gold controversy. He is thought to have designs on the top job at the central bank.

City thinktank CSFI has been agonizing over whether to bite one of the hands that feeds it. Should it publish a paper by FSA researcher Kevin James which claims that - surprise, surprise - the gullible British public are being ripped off by their fund managers?

Many of Bangkok's drivers owned riches beyond their wildest dreams - and never even knew about it. Mercedes, houses and even whole companies were in the names of lowly drivers as nominees for their bosses. As Thai authorities now grapple with the black hole of debt which engulfed the country, recovering the massive loans - many made to friends or relatives - is not proving as easy as hoped.

Another euro-related operational issue has cropped up. Banks have tended not to charge each other for the provision of intra-day liquidity, but the euro payment systems will change all that - at least that's what bankers are predicting.

John Heimann, chairman of the global financial institutions group at Merrill Lynch and a member of the firm's executive management committee, takes up a new position next month. After 14 years at Merrill he is retiring from Merrill to become chairman of the Financial Stability Institute at the Bank for International Settlements.