NEWS,29.07.2013

Amazon hiring thousands of people

Amazon announced plans Monday to add 5 000 full-time jobs at 17 facilities in the United States and to hire more than 7 000 workers as it beefs up its customer-service network.
The online retail giant is creating jobs as it expands its distribution network to speed up deliveries. The facilities in 10 states across the country, from South Carolina to California.
Amazon said that more than 5 000 jobs were now available across its warehouse network, touting pay that is 30% higher than that of traditional retail stores.
"In the last year alone, Amazon opened eight fulfillment centers in the US, resulting in thousands of new jobs being added to communities nationwide," the company said in a statement.
The Seattle-based retailer also said it was currently hiring in four states for more than 2 000 jobs in its customer service network, which includes a mix of full-time, part-time and seasonal jobs.
Amazon shares fell 0.9% in morning trade in New York.

China agrees to talks on wine dispute

China and the European Union have agreed there is a "window for discussions" to try to resolve accusations that Europe is dumping wine in China, the EU's trade chief said on Monday.
The agreement is part of a deal announced at the weekend to defuse a row over dumping of Chinese solar panels in Europe, the biggest trade dispute yet between the two economies.
Responding to the EU's initial plan to impose punitive duties on solar panels, China launched an anti-dumping inquiry into European wine sales, which would lead to retaliatory duties on exporters in France, Spain and Italy.
"There is a window for discussions between the European Union and Chinese (wine) producers," EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told a news conference. "The Chinese government has promised to facilitate such discussions," he said.
EU and Chinese diplomats expect the wine dispute, as well as another conflict over EU exports of polysilicon a raw material for solar panels to be dropped as a goodwill gesture.
China is the world's biggest importer of Bordeaux wines and consumption soared 110% in 2011 alone.
China's commerce ministry could not confirm any freeze to the EU wine investigation, the website associated with the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily reported on Monday, citing an unnamed official.
A lawyer representing the Chinese industry association that filed the wine complaint said the firm had not received any notice on the freezing of the probe, the website www.people.com.cn said.
"The relevant investigation is still proceeding regularly," Yao Fengwen, a lawyer with Bo Heng (Beijing B&H Associates) law firm, told the site.
Germany's Wacker Chemie is the world's second biggest maker of polysilicon and would be hurt by any tariffs in China.

Foreign firms win $22.5bn Saudi contracts

Saudi Arabia has granted three foreign consortium's contracts worth $22.5bn (€16.9bn) to build a Riyadh metro, the kingdom announced at a news conference in the capital late Sunday.
The consortiums are led by US, Spanish and Italian firms.
The 176-kilometre (110-mile) six-line network is aimed at easing chronic traffic congestion in Riyadh, a city of six million people.
A consortium led by US engineering giant Bechtel Corp will construct two lines worth $9.45bn, the official SPA news agency reported.
Spanish BTP-FCC consortium will build three of the metro lines for $7.88bn, after it beat competition from South Korea's Samsung, France's Alstom and Freyssinet, and Dutch group Strukton to secure the deal.
Another line costing $5.21bn went to Italy's Ansaldo.
The lines are planned to stretch across the capital and serve the airport and the future King Abdullah Financial District.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia also plans to invest billions of dollars in rail networks linking major cities across the vast desert kingdom.
The kingdom already has a 449-kilometre passenger line between Riyadh and Dammam in Eastern Province, with a parallel freight line linking the capital with the Gulf coast city.

Focus on emerging markets

Fickle investors have spurned emerging markets in recent weeks, but this route has obscured a more alluring vista out on the horizon.

Developing economies now account for 50% of global output and 80% of economic expansion, and are projected to continue growing far faster than developed nations. They are expected to possess an even larger share of global growth, wealth and investment opportunities in years to come.
So much so that the labels investors use to classify some of these nations will change as the developing develop and the emerging emerge into more potent economic powers.
But this long-term view has been lost on many of those who look to emerging market assets for a higher yield in the short term. Their ardour cooled when the Federal Reserve signalled it may soon ease the stimulus that has kept credit cheap, heralding higher interest rates ahead.
That was coupled with signs of slower growth in key emerging markets like China and Brazil.
Still, the developing world's gross domestic product growth of 5.0% this year and 5.4% next, as projected by the International Monetary Fund, will far outpace the advanced economies' 1.2% and 2.1%.
Developing countries are now also better armed to keep panic at bay, with more foreign exchange reserves than before and less aggregate debt than developed nations. Many have put their economies on firmer foundations.
Fear of a mass exodus of investors, however, has still sent emerging market shares down about 10% in the past two months, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, compared with a marginal rise in the Standard & Poor's index of US shares.
Consider some other data that the World Bank has crunched, suggesting developing nations will attract increased capital flows because their growth implies big investment opportunities, improved creditworthiness and the ability to better diversify portfolios and manage risk.
According to one bank report, by 2030 developing countries will represent two-thirds of all global investment, up from about half today and from one-fifth in 2000.
At that time, half the global stock of capital is expected to reside in the developing world, compared to less than one-third today. That means a shift in the distribution of wealth and in the creation of opportunity.
This shift in investment activity coincides with the catch-up growth that began during the 1990s, as developing nations integrated into global markets, transformed their economies and improved their institutions, Hans Timmer, director of the World Bank team that produced the report, said.
"Productivity catch-up, increasing integration into global markets, sound macroeconomic policies and improved education and health are helping speed growth and create massive investment opportunities, which, in turn are spurring a shift in global economic weight to developing countries," the report said.
And to be clear, this is investment in buildings and machinery, not the more flighty financial flows.
The Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are expected to loom large. China will make up 30% of all investment activity, while Brazil, India and Russia together will account for more than 13% of global investment in 2030, edging the 11% projected in the United States.
But their growing importance as sources and destinations of capital flows will not be a Bric story alone, the report says. It calls out sub-Saharan Africa, for example, which can be expected to not only receive a growing volume of capital flows but also to attract an increasing share of the total capital flows to developing countries.
The bank's researchers forecast that developing countries will likely have the resources needed to finance massive future investments for infrastructure and services.
That's predicated on strong saving rates, expected to top out at 34% of national income in 2014 and averaging 32% annually until 2030. Meanwhile, the saving rate for high-income countries will fall from 20% to 16%.
In aggregate terms, the developing world will account for 62-64% of global saving of $25-27trn by 2030, up from 45% in 2010.
This points to greater wealth in the developing world as a percentage of the global total: the average per capital income of the developing world is expected to rise from about 8.0% of that in high-income countries in 2010, to about 16% by 2030.
The average citizen of what is now a developing country, according to one bank scenario, will earn 19% of the income of an average high-income country citizen by 2030.
Indeed, one McKinsey study projects more than half the world's population will have joined the consuming classes by 2025, boosting consumption in emerging markets to $30trn a year. It will, the report says, be nothing short of the "defining growth opportunity of our times".
Seizing on this theme, Bhaskar Chakravorti and Gita Rao, writing in Foreign Affairs recently, pointed to the hand-wringing over the decline of American power and urged US businesses to compete in emerging markets to help themselves grow, hire again and create wealth.
Another fan with a long lens is Mark Mobius, chairperson of the Templeton Emerging Markets Group, who wrote last month that commodities, exports and infrastructure development could continue to be leading growth drivers in many emerging economies, but overall growth is likely to arise increasingly from healthier domestic demand.
"Expanding consumer wealth is creating an increasingly large and discriminating body of middle class consumers across emerging markets, and their demand is, in turn, creating increasingly significant domestic economic activity," Mobius said. "
"With a relatively high proportion of the population in emerging markets moving into the workforce and a relatively low proportion of dependents, demographics are acting to reinforce consumer demand."
These forecasts are not unconditional. Some risks will reduce over time. Others will increase.
The countries must continue to drive increases in productivity and attract investors to finance the investments, the bank's report says.
There is also an assumption that some of markets will have addressed some of the hurdles to invest now which variously include poor governance, lax enforcement of contracts and property rights, corruption, lack of adequate infrastructure and distribution networks and uneven pipeline of talent.
In addition, as emerging economies develop, their financial markets integrate more into global ones, and they ease restrictions on capital that flows across their borders. It then  becomes more difficult to shield them from international shocks, the World Bank's Timmer said.
They can mitigate those shocks as alternatives to the dollar rise, and as they build reserves in other currencies like the euro and the yuan.
There are other challenges that concern Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London. The first, already well known in China, is the need to reposition economies to be more consumer-driven and less dependent on exports.
The second is avoiding the kind of investment bubble created in the eastern European property market - which burst a few years ago.
"If the investment is in glitzy shopping malls," Shearing told me, "it can create bubbles and be dangerous. Whereas investment in China is excessive but in roads, railways and ports that you do want to look for."
Growth may slow, and challenges will abound, but the prospects loom large. And therein lies opportunity.

Gas flows from Myanmar-China pipeline

Gas has started flowing to energy-hungry China through a pipeline from Myanmar, Beijing's official media reported, in a major project that highlights their economic links even as political ties come under pressure.
The 793-kilometre (492-mile) pipeline runs from Kyaukpyu on resource-rich Myanmar's west coast, close to the offshore Shwe gasfields, and across the country.
It enters southwest China at Ruili, near areas where heavy clashes between the rebel Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar military were reported earlier this year.
As well as diversifying China's sources of fuel, by supplying energy to the vast and less developed west it could help Beijing's attempts to promote economic growth there.
It went into operation on Sunday at a ceremony in Mandalay, the official Xinhua news agency reported. "When torches flamed in the sky.... a storm of applause and cheers broke out," it said.
But the controversial project is the fruit of Beijing's long allegiance with the military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades, a bond that is weakening as the reforming government opens up to the West.
In an editorial on Monday China's Global Times newspaper, affiliated with the ruling Communist Party, said: "This is another breakthrough in China's strategy of energy diversification and has obvious significance in reducing China's dependence on the Strait of Malacca for the import of oil and natural gas."
Construction began in June 2010, according to China National Petroleum Corporation, the key investor. A parallel oil pipeline is also part of the project.
According to Xinhua, the gas pipeline will be able to carry 12 billion cubic metres annually, while the crude oil pipeline has a capacity of 22 million tonnes per year.
Under military rule Myanmar was a pariah state largely isolated from the rest of the world and subject to heavy international sanctions, but it maintained close economic links with China, which for years was its major foreign influence.
Now, with Myanmar which also includes tin and precious gems among its natural assets opening up politically and economically, more countries are setting up operations and seeking deals that sanctions had previously prevented.
"Myanmar used to be sanctioned by the West and China was its only friend," the Global Times editorial acknowledged.
"Nowadays, it has opened more to the West. This will reduce its passion in cooperating with China, but does not mean it will set itself against China."
But in a warning that Beijing expects its economic interests to be protected, the newspaper cautioned Myanmar that it must ensure agreements regarding the project are fulfilled, no matter who eventually leads the country, where democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi has entered parliament.
"China should be determined to supervise Myanmar in doing so," the paper said. "Myanmar should hold a serious attitude toward China, and Chinese will take (the Myanmar) people's attitude toward the pipeline as a test of their stance on China."
Chinese nervousness about its investments in Myanmar comes after Naypyidaw said last week it had revised a controversial copper mine agreement with a Chinese company, after dozens of Buddhist monks and villagers were injured in a botched police raid.
Myanmar Minister of Mines Myint Aung told parliament that new terms gave the government 51% of the revenue, replacing a previous deal that was a joint venture between the Chinese firm and a holding company owned by the Myanmar military.
In 2011, Myanmar President Thein Sein stopped construction on the China-backed $3.6bn Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy river amid public opposition to the project, a move that led Beijing to call for its companies' rights and interests to be protected.
The Shwe Gas Movement, a campaign group, says the pipeline project has sparked protests over issues including demands for higher salaries for local workers, and concerns among farmers about its environmental impacts.
Myanmar plans to renegotiate billions of dollars of natural resource deals as it imposes tougher environmental standards and clamps down on corruption, the US-based Asia Society said in a report last month.

NEWS,03.02.2013

Fiat boss eyes Chrysler merger in 2014

Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne said Sunday that he expected the merger of the Italian car giant and its US partner Chrysler will take place in 2014."We will succeed in doing it," he said in an interview with the editor of the Repubblica newspaper. "We and VEBA (the United Auto Workers pension fund a Chrysler shareholder) have different opinions on the value of Chrysler but we will resolve the problem in 2014."Macchione, who heads both companies, had said on January 30 that the ties between the two automakers were "irreversible" and would merge "as soon as I can afford it" but did not put date on the merger.Asked on Sunday if Fiat would keep its Turin headquarters Macchione said: "We are a big group present throughout the world, it will depend on access to financial markets and the choices of the Agnelli family" who founded Fiat.He had "not thought" about the future name of the new entity, he said.The deal will ultimately give Fiat a 65% stake in Chrysler and full ownership by 2015.Boosted by increased sales at Chrysler, the Italian giant on Wednesday reported a profitable 2012, announcing a fourth quarter net profit that rose to €388m from €265m the year before.The company said it was aiming for profits of between €1.2bn and €1.5bn this year.Fiat took a 20% stake in Chrysler in 2009 as the third largest US automaker emerged from a government-financed restructuring under bankruptcy protection.It has since steadily expanded its stake by purchasing shares owned by the US government and the VEBA fund.

Starbucks tax offer too little, too late

Despite pledging to pay millions of pounds in extra tax in Britain, Starbucks faces a battle to restore its reputation over its fiscal stance, with analysts saying the offer is "too little too late".With 760 Starbucks outlets dotting Britain, coffee lovers need not travel far to find the familiar green signage and grab a frothy latte or a flat white.But surveys suggest British consumers may be losing appetite for the US chain following the revelation last year that it has paid just £8.6m in British corporation tax since 1998, despite generating £3 billion in revenues.The revelations sparked a stream of negative publicity plus protests outside coffee shops which analysts say hit the brand hard, though Starbucks itself insists "UK customers have remained loyal".Under the weight of pressure from lawmakers and consumers, the company pledged in December to pay an additional £20m in corporation tax over two years.But Sarah Murphy, director of market researchers YouGov BrandIndex, said the offer "has done little to slow down negative sentiment surrounding the brand."BrandIndex has tracked public perception of the coffee giant over several months. Its "Buzz" index gives companies a score based on what people have been hearing about the brand, with zero representing equal levels of positive and negative.In early October Starbucks' Buzz score stood at +1.9, but this plummeted to -28.4 following the tax headlines, and reached -45.2 in mid-December."That was quite a significant decline," said Murphy, adding that measures of perceptions of Starbucks' quality and value also sank during that time.In November, Britain's parliamentary accounts committee grilled top executives from Google, Amazon and Starbucks over their tax affairs.The apparent peak in negativity surrounding Starbucks in December came after the committee's chairman Margaret Hodge slammed companies involved in tax avoidance schemes as "totally immoral".Since then, Murphy says the brand "does seem to be making a slow recovery", but that the company "did too little too late."Social media agency Yomego identified similar patterns. It tracked online conversation over the same period and found negative comments about Starbucks increasingly outweighed positive.Some 95% of comments on Starbucks UK's Facebook and Twitter pages made reference to tax evasion, analysts said.Yomego managing director Steve Richards said: "The outrage over tax avoidance can't help but have an impact on a company's reputation in social channels."The old adage that 'bad news travels fast' has never been more true. Now news has so many channels to travel through, with the potential to multiply as people comment on and share stories."But does negative chatter cause consumers to shop elsewhere?Restaurant manager Julia Stypik said she's "not a huge fan of Starbucks... There's much better coffee and plenty of competitors."However this did not stop her frequenting a busy London branch of the chain one lunch-hour.On the tax issue, she told AFP: "I think they have been very clever but this should end at some point. It's unfair. Everyone has to pay taxes. "Some critics argue Starbucks is being unfairly targeted; Britain needs to tighten up on loopholes which allow companies to pay less corporation tax by moving profits abroad. Starbucks has acknowledged paying no corporation tax for three years on sales worth £400m owing to fees paid to other parts of its business. Executives insist its British division is unprofitable.Despite operating within the law, the multinational has borne fierce criticism from lawmakers, including Prime Minister David Cameron who told the World Economic Forum in Davos last month that tax-avoiding companies must "wake up and smell the coffee".The swipe was ill-received by Starbucks, according to the Sunday Telegraph which claimed it threatened to pull £100m of British investment, though a source close to the company told AFP "no threat was made".A Starbucks spokesperson said: "Starbucks agrees with the prime minister that all businesses should pay their fair share."In the UK, we employ 9 000 people, contribute £300m a year to the economy and are foregoing tax deductions that will make the Exchequer at least £20m better off."Starbucks says it remains "fully committed" to opening 300 new stores and creating 5 000 new jobs by 2016.

Kuwait growth to slow - report

Oil-driven economic growth in the Gulf state of Kuwait is forecast to slow down this year and in 2014 as crude output is expected to remain flat, the National Bank of Kuwait said in a report Sunday.After Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by a healthy 6.1% in real terms last year, thanks to continued strong oil income, it is forecast to drop to 3.2% in 2013 and to 2.5% in 2014, NBK said.Following a massive contraction of around 8% in 2009 due to the impact of the global financial crisis, Kuwait's economy gradually rebounded to grow by around 8% in 2011 as oil output and price remained high.Oil income in the OPEC member contributes an average of 95% to public revenues. Kuwait ended the past 13 fiscal years in the black and is forecast to post a huge budget surplus in the current fiscal year which ends on March 31.Oil GDP, which grew by 15% and 10% in 2011 and 2012 respectively, is expected to remain flat this year and contract by around 1.5% in 2014, according to the NBK report.But the bank revised upward expected non-oil GDP growth from 4% to 5% this year based on signs of greater determination by the authorities to implement large infrastructure projects.Most projects under a $110bn four-year development plan, that runs until 2014, have been stalled because of a political crisis in the emirate.The opposition has staged protests to demand the dissolution of parliament elected last month on the basis of an electoral law that was amended by the emir, claiming that the change is illegal and aimed at electing a rubber stamp body.But over the past few months, authorities either signed or gave the green light for mega projects worth around $40bn, mostly in the oil and power sectors.Inflation this year and next is expected to remain moderate at between 3-4%.Kuwait says it sits on around 10% of global oil reserves and pumps around 3.0 million barrels per day. It is estimated to have $400bn in foreign assets run by the sovereign wealth fund.The emirate has a native population of 1.2 million in addition to 2.6 million foreigners, mostly Asians and Arabs.

China's shortage threatens economy

China's demographic timebomb is ticking much louder with the first fall in its labour pool for decades, analysts say, highlighting the risk that the country grows old before it grows rich.The abundant supply of cheap workers in the world's most populous nation has created unprecedented cost efficiencies that underpinned its blistering economic expansion over the past 35 years, propelling the global economy forward.But now the inexorable consequences of the one-child policy imposed in the late 1970s are beginning to appear, and threaten to impact its future growth.China's working-age population, defined as 15-59, fell 3.45 million last year, official data showed earlier this month the first decline since 1963, after tens of millions died in a famine caused by the Great Leap Forward.The immediate effect may be small in a nation of 1.35 billion people, but the cumulative effects will accelerate over the coming decades.The number of people aged between 15 and 64 will drop by around 40 million between 2014 and 2030, said Wang Guangzhou, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government think-tank --more than Poland's entire population."The population is aging so fast that we are running short of time to deal with it," said Li Jun, also of CASS, adding the family planning policy had exacerbated the problem.China's proportion of over-65-year-olds is projected to double from seven to 14% over only 26 years a key demographic measure that took the United States 69 years to complete."Undoubtedly it will substantially slow down China's potential growth rate," Yao Wei, an economist with Societe Generale in Hong Kong, told AFP.An ageing population not only means fewer people available to employ and higher labour costs, but investment a key driver of China's growth will be harder to maintain as families spend their savings on health care, she said.Chinese authorities maintain that controlling its population growth has been key to increasing its prosperity.But while China has risen to become the world's second-largest economy, on a per capita basis it still lags far behind the US and other developed countries.Industrial disputes have become more common in recent years, as workers demand higher pay and better working conditions on the back of growing awareness of their rights and the shortage of skilled staff.Multinational companies are looking to other developing economies with lower wages for further expansion, with some already moving production bases out of China to rivals such as Indonesia and Vietnam.In a survey of 514 Japanese manufacturers by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation last year, the number of respondents voting China as the top destination for overseas business fell by more than 10 percentage points on 2011.Economists said China must look to speed up the transformation of its economic model and move up the value chain.The golden period of the manufacturing industry, particularly those depending on exports, has gone," said Yao.At the same time, she said, the country was woefully underprepared to meet the burden of caring for the elderly."The fiscal situation is not prepared and the social security network is not complete," she said.By around 2060, every three Chinese workers will have to support two people above 60, compared with a ratio of five to one now, according to Li's projections.It is a crucial challenge for the ruling Communist Party, said Ren Xianfang, a Beijing-based analyst with research firm IHS Global Insight."Delivering growth and delivering social security to the general public are the key things for the state to (maintain) its legitimacy."Analysts said the medical services are increasingly expensive and hard to access, while the country's flagship public pension plans are crippled by problems including insolvency risks, difficulties in expanding coverage and mismanagement.A rural areas programme was introduced in 2009 to provide people from the countryside with their first ever state-subsided retirement scheme, but its payouts are particularly meagre in many areas as low as 55 yuan ($9) a month.The husband of Du Wenlan, a farmer from Chongqing, gets 80 yuan a month from the plan. She only buys new clothes once every three years, she said, and tries to save money by diluting their rice porridge."What can 80 yuan do?" she asked.On the streets of Beijing, Su Xu, 30, who works for a cosmetics company, told AFP: "I panic when I think about my retirement."

Why 'A players' matter

It's All About Who You Hire, How They Lead... and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader by Morton L MandelTHIS is an unusual book on leadership.It is the distilled wisdom of an American businessman and philanthropist, but that in itself is not unusual as there are literally thousands of books of this kind.There are three facts that make this book unusual. First, Mandel was described by the business guru, Peter Drucker, in a Forbes magazine article as one of the three businessmen he admired most. (The other two were Jack Welsh of General Electric and Andy Grove of Intel.)Second, his company, Premier Industrial Corporation, was the lead anecdote in a Business Week cover story on customer service, and superlative customer service is always the result of a business that is well managed.Finally, Mandel is a self-made dollar billionaire; his is a genuine story of rags to riches.The title of the book, “It is all about who you hire" encapsulates much of its wisdom. Great leaders have always had an undue impact on the organisations they lead, whether the organisation is a non-profit, a for-profit or a country.This position has led to Mandel insisting that only “A players” occupy leadership positions in his own companies, and in the many public benefit organisations he served and those he established with his own wealth.In a conversation with Mandel, Drucker asserted that you must always put your very best person into your greatest opportunity. When Mandel countered with the question: what if your best person is dentist and your greatest opportunity is a brass foundry, Drucker replied that the best person would fast realise what he could not do and fast find the right person to do it.This begs the question  what is an “A player?” Mandel has five criteria: intellect, values, passion, work ethic, and experience in this order.The complexity of modern business requires its leader to have intellectual firepower, that ability to analyse facts correctly, interrogate situations cleverly, apply thoughtful judgement, and make good decisions.Fortunately, there are many ways to see a person’s intellect and Mandel favours school and university grades because they are taken over long periods and therefore are more reliable than a quick test or flash of brilliance in an interview. Values are harder to discern, but how a candidate talks about their parents, teacher and role models does provide clues.Intellect and values without passion won’t get results you require from the leader. Passion, unlike values, is much easier to discern because you can feel it, hear, it see it. If you can feel it, so will the leader’s staff.The work ethic Mandel is referring to is not only the capacity to work long and work hard, but the way you engage with your work. The work ethic is the belief that work goes a long way in defining oneself.Experience comes last on this list of what you look for when you hire an “A player” because you can help an incumbent to have the relevant experience if he has the other four ingredients.“A players” will need to be paid well, but this is always a small investment for the type of return they are able create. A greater problem is keeping them; they will not stay long in a company or organisation which does not have a rich, deep and ethical culture.A deeply ethical culture is the created and maintained only through diligently enforcing and reinforcing ethical behaviour between staff, and between the company and its suppliers and customers. It requires the establishing codes of conduct that are taken seriously, and never giving in to the temptation to compromise even if the cost is high.Mandel recalls a hugely valuable deal his firm had worked hard to close. When it was secured, the representative of the customer company explained that a 5% consideration was required a veiled request for a “side payment.”There was no discussion as to whether Mandel’s company should accede to the request, so clear were the company's values to all. They don’t engage in dishonest practices, no matter the cost, so the deal was declined.The style of management practised and promoted by Mandel is the polar opposite of the laissez faire type, where the CEO hires his leaders and releases them to do as they will. It is also not a command and control style.Mandel stays on top of all issues to provide guidance and assistance so that both the decisions and the execution are superb.The managers we want out of our way are invariably the managers who we do not respect. These are not managers who are helping you to do your best work; rather, they want you to blindly execute their will.One of the techniques to achieve your personal best in your private life as well as your career is the “Factsbook.” This is a three-ring binder that every leader at every level has that contains minutes of every meeting you have with your manager, all your assignments, your progress in these assignments, and even a schedule of your meetings for the year.At the beginning of each meeting the notes from the last meeting are read aloud to the manager. This seemingly odd practice is of enormous value in keeping responsibilities clear and ensuring they are fulfilled. Consider this: how many times have decisions you and a staff member agreed should be done, not been carried out? Then read the chapter on Factbooks and start using them.The book covers a wide array of thoughts ranging from uncommonly high commitment to satisfying a customer to what to watch out for in mergers or acquisitions. Many of the lessons were learned from Mandel’s successes, but equally from failures or missteps. What Mandel stresses, as seen from having been there, is that there is no difference between running a for-profit and a not-for-profit organisation. The only difference is the measures of success.This book will enlighten you, remind you of things you already know, but perhaps don’t practice, and give you a perspective on doing business successfully. The approach works. Mandel proved it.

NEWS,24.01.2013

Britain reaches out to world leaders

British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted on Thursday he was not turning his back on Europe as he came face to face with world leaders for the first time since unveiling plans for a referendum.In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Cameron said he would use his country's chairmanship of the G8 to counter tax avoidance by corporations and urged action to curb the threat of terror attacks. But the global elite gathered in the snowy Swiss ski resort only had ears for Cameron's comments on the European Union, a day after he unveiled his proposal to let the British public vote on whether to stay in the bloc.He held talks with German Chancellor and EU powerbroker Angela Merkel and the prime ministers of Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands on the sidelines of the annual forum to seek support for his plans."This is not about turning our backs on Europe quite the opposite," Cameron told the audience of business leaders, top politicians and journalists from around the world."It's about how we make the case for a more competitive, open and flexible Europe, and secure the UK's place within it."His announcement on Wednesday that he wants to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Brussels and then hold an "in-or-out" referendum on membership by the end of 2017 has delighted his increasingly anti-EU party at home.European leaders in Davos called on Britain to stay in the 27-nation group and made encouraging noises, in public at least, in support of Cameron's calls for reforms to make the EU more competitive.Cameron will need allies in Europe to back his quest to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Brussels before holding a referendum on the new terms.Dutch premier Mark Rutte warned that without the EU, Britain would be "an island somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere between the United States and Europe".Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the EU would be "stronger if Britain is part of it."Merkel meanwhile sidestepped the topic but reached out to Cameron by vowing more action on one of the key reforms he wants for Europe boosting competitiveness."I say this expressly to my colleague David Cameron. You too have addressed competitiveness, see this as a central issue to ensure Europe's prosperity for the future," she said.Foreign policy guru and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger told the forum that the "idea of European unity needs to be resolved" if the continent is to make a lasting recovery from the three-year eurozone debt crisis.But Cameron rejected any idea of a European superstate or of Britain ever adopting the euro and added that he did not agree that "there should be a country called Europe".Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne backed up the message when he appeared at Davos later, saying: "I'm arguing for reform in Europe and Britain being part of a reformed Europe."Cameron said in his speech that Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight leading world economies Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States would focus on tackling tax avoidance and increasing transparency in a bid to boost the global economy.He said corporations must "pay their fair share" of taxes and that too many businesses were abusing tax schemes, after Britain last year announced a crackdown on multinationals such as Starbucks, Google and Amazon.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates and Jordan's Queen Rania are due to share the stage with Cameron on Thursday evening to speak on issues affecting the global economy.The crisis in Mali, where French forces are helping African troops fight Islamist militants, was also being discussed.No formal decisions are taken at Davos but corporate deals are often sewn up on the sidelines and presidents and prime ministers huddle to thrash out pressing issues.

Concern over currency manipulation at WEF

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concern on Thursday about the risks of currency manipulation, specifically mentioning Japan, where the central bank has decided to quicken the pace of money-printing."I am not completely without worry. We have a much higher sensitivity through the discussion in the G20 for currency manipulation or political influence," Merkel said at the World Economic Forum in Davos."I don't want to say that I look towards Japan completely without concern at the moment. And it will be important for Europe as well that the ample liquidity that was given out to banks last year is collected back again."

EU carbon market plunge 'a wake-up call'

A carbon market price fall to less than €3 on Thursday must serve as a wake-up call to EU member states to back a Commission plan to prop up the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the EU climate commissioner said.The cost of carbon allowances on the ETS hit a low of €2.81 a tonne on Thursday after a European Parliament committee in a preliminary, non-binding vote, rejected proposals for market reform. The price later climbed back above €4."It must be clear to all that when the Commission warned that the ETS price could drop dramatically it was not a false warning but a real possibility," Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in a statement."This should be the final wake-up call both to governments and to the European Parliament."Thursday's vote was only an advisory step in the tortuous EU process of trying to agree a plan to remove temporarily some of the surplus allowances that have depressed the market.A more decisive vote in the European Parliament's environment committee is expected next month, to be followed by a vote of member states.Hedegaard said there was widespread agreement an ETS was "the most cost-efficient tool in EU climate politics" and world-wide the idea was catching on.The European Union is working on linking up with other schemes in Switzerland and Australia, for instance.As the rest of the world moves towards coherent carbon pricing, which many in business say they need to plan investment, Hedegaard said the EU was in danger of a messy patchwork of policies, different for each of the 27 member states."The alternative to a well-functioning carbon market is hardly that the EU member states will make it cost nothing to pollute," she said."The alternative is a re-nationalisation of climate tools, meaning a future patchwork of up to 27 different systems and taxes, instead of one market creating a level playing field internally in Europe."