On Mondays, the IFI blog highlights recent international news items that are relevant to the work of prospect researchers. Some of these news items provide specific wealth information, while others help establish context for research projects in particular country. This week’s round-up, drawing on end-of-2011 news coverage, is heavy on trends and predictions for 2012.
Real Estate
In the video below, The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report explored trends affecting real estate prices in Hong Kong.
The Moscow News ran a 2012 predictions article that speculated about, among other issues, that city’s real estate prices in 2012. The predicted trend is an increased price for “the next few years.”
Meanwhile, the luxury property market in France has been going through a “boom” time, despite the bad economy. Experts quoted in this article (in French) attributed the boom in part to wealthy buyers from “emerging economies and the Gulf” region.
Rich Lists
ArabianBusiness published the 2011 edition of its Rich List, which profiles the “Arab world’s richest men and women.”
Compensation
The bad economy has not kept companies in Russia from handing out year-end bonuses.
Business and Finance
Al Jazeera’s “Counting the Costs” program ran a half-hour exploration of economic trends in Latin America over the weekend.
fDi magazine recently released its annual “Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future” (free registration required) list, which is an interesting background read on cities evaluated on criteria such as “business friendliness” and “economic potential.”
The Times of India ran an article about the current business climate in India and some top executives considering moving their investments out of the country. According to the article,
“The frustration of India’s business elite with corruption, political paralysis, log-jammed approvals, regulatory flip-flops, lack of access to natural resources and land acquisition battles — to pick a few of the top complaints — has reached a pitch perhaps not heard since India began liberalizing its economy in the early 1990s.”
Tax havens
“A few corporate biggies” in Mumbai are among dozens of individuals under scrutiny for tax evasion via Swiss bank accounts, according to the Times of India.
