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Brazil's oil company Petrobras raised $7 billion in the largest emerging market corporate bond deal. Petrobras issued 3, 5, 10 and 30 year securities priced to yield 3.628%. The bonds are rated A3 by Moody's and BBB from S&P.

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Mario Monti says he had to do things quickly after his financial emergency government took office in 2011. There was less consultation and most of the initial reforms were done under pressure from the EU and a crisis situation in financial markets. Change takes some time to accomplish, says Monti, his period in offfice was too brief to tackle the entrenched interests and bureucracy. He and many of the cabinet had never been part of any government, yet had to act quickly. The oath of office on Nov. 16, "Save Italy" decree on Dec. 4. His government simply told the unions this is the pernsion reform, did not consult with them. As the crisis receded the pressure receded, and with 2013 elections approaching the political parties were back to electoral politics. Monti's view is that for decades the interest and corporatist groups have taken over government. Under the right, the inital mood of change gave way to takeover by entrenched interests leading to no changes under Berlusconi. The left feared pension reform would hurt them politically. If he had five years, Monti says, he would have tackled the bureaucracy the first day. In the end, Monti views his coming to Rome as landing from Mars, someone from the outside tackling deepseated problems in a short time frame. An assessment of Monti's contribution should take this into account. He was unpopular for the austerity measures which may have deepened the recession. Yet his contribution was in bringing a new seriousness to Italy's problems after decades of neglect by both the right and the left in Italian politics and government, and by corporatist interests in government. The beginning made by Monti, now gives Matteo Renzi a chance to make the tougher changes needed for Italy to return to growth....

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Agatha Sangma, at 28, is the youngest member of Parliament in India. Se was reelected from the Tura constituency in Meghalaya,, in India's northeast. She is minister of state for rural development in the newly elected Congress coalition government. Her father PA Sangma was a speaker in the Lok Sabha, India's Parliament. In India's system the cabinet minister has the biggest chunk of work and under him comes the minister of state. But considering how big the rural economy is in India, at over 40% of GDP and growing fast from a low base, its aposition of great responsibility for ayoung woman. Here she talks to Jyoti Malhotra of the WSJ. She is responsible for drinking water and sanitation. Access to drinking water, contamination of water, and water supplies for agriculture are a huge challenge for India. Agatha has studied environmental management in the UK, so she can bring knowledge of modern methods for managing water to her job. She likes to be responsible for implementing work in the rural areas, and has the youth and energy to travel and see things first hand for implementation. She says accountability is important for implementation and out in the field she can observe and ask questions. One of the problems she shees in implementation is properly using the funds allocated. This fund alone is 62,000 crores. And seeing that these funds are properly allocated and spent to generate the best use of the resources is critical for improving lives and meeting the needs for rural development. She sees room for experimenting, for innovation and bringing fresh ideas to this job. She seems to handle the interview questions quite well....

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The problems Brazil faces with a sea of liquidity from developed countries with low interest rates going to emerging market countries with higher interest rates. Brazil is taking steps including a recent cut in interest rates to stem the flow. But interest rates at 12% are still too high not to attract business people in the carrying trade who borrow at low rates in the U.S. and Europe and invest the money in Brazil. The foreign direct investment has also increased. The result is an artificially overvalued currency- by as much as 36% since Jan 1, 2009 according to analysts- which hurts exporters and job creation in Brazil, as it becomes cheaper to import products than manufacture at home. Workers from VW recently protested in Sao Paulo as imports of cars are up significantly and there is a fear of job reduction at VW plants in Brazil. Brazil's automakers association estimate is for car imports to make up 25% of all cars sold in Brazil in 2011. This compares with 5% of cars sold being imported in 2005. It also shows up in production statistics. Brazilian industrial production declined by 1.6% in June 2011 from May. The cost of inputs are increasing rapidly for labor, raw materials, transportation, making Brazil a costly place to do business. The cost of living is now higher in Sao Paulo than in New York city. Cynthia Benedetto, the CFO of Embraer, a large Brazilian aircraft maker, says she always thought since she was a little girl that Brazil was the place of the future. But its deceptive now that the future is here, because this euphoria of progress could be shortlived. Embraer is investing in technology to reduce labor costs and is opening factories overseas. Bombardier, one of Embraer's competitors from Canada recently announced plans to build a manufacturing plant in Mexico. Brazilian president Rousseff is aware of this, and told Latin American leaders in Lima, Peru: "we have to defend ourselves against this immense, fantastic, extraordinary sea of liquidity that finds its way to our economies in search of returns that it can't find in its own." At the same time Rousseff has election promises to fulfill that require larger spending and for which the capital inflows are convenient but could prove erratic- for social welfare projects, and for infrastructure spending in advance of the Olympics. Turkey is seeing a similiar situation with booming consumer credit sustained by capital inflows even as its manufacturing competitiveness has remained weak. ...

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China Investment Corporation, China's sovereign wealth fund is expected to issue upto 28 billion in bonds to help recapitalize China's state owned banks. These banks face the prospect of increasing bad loans as a result of the hectic pace of bank lending in 2009-2010. Loans guaranteed by muncipal governments are estimated at 7.7 trillion yuan, or 17% of overall lending, about 50% of these loans face uncertainty in the event of falling housing prices, and 25% are bad loans. The recent IPO of Agricultural Bank of China raised funds, but the environment for raising money in this way does not look good, as information is spreading that these banks face large loan losses. The bonds from CIC would be picked up by state controlled companies. Yet these state controlled companies are engaging in the real estate speculation, as reported by David Barboza of the New York Times and Peter Coy of Business Week. In a down cycle things could get much worse as a state sovereign fund is selling bonds, state controlled companies would buy these bonds, and state controlled banks are expected to be recapitalized making a complete circle....

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Spain's budget deficit as a percentage of GDP comes in at 6.7% for 2012, according to government figures. This means Spain is making significant progress in bringing down its deficit to reduce borrowing rates. This gives the government more flexibility with austerity measures at a time of rising unemployment estimated at 26%.