BRICS Business

File photo shows Venezuela’s Maduro and Russia’s Putin, right, who several times this year discussed the oil glut plaguing their economies [Xinhua]
A desperate cash-strapped Venezuela is reaching out to its fellow OPEC members in a bid to convince them to hold an extraordinary summit in coming weeks to cap oil production and raise energy prices.
Venezuela’s Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino is to meet with his Iranian, Qatari and Saudi counterparts this week in a bid to persuade them to change output policy.

An employer walks past exhibition boxes printed with the logo of Alibaba Group in the Taobao City of Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, March 25, 2014 [Xinhua]E-commerce giant Alibaba Group announced Thursday night that its third quarter revenue jumped 32 per cent year on year to 34.5 billion yuan ($5.3 billion).
The Chinese firm’s attempts to monetize user activity on mobile devices helped its mobile revenue soar 192 per cent year-on-year to 18.8 billion yuan in the October to December period.

Plummeting oil prices are hurting emerging economies already reeling from a lack of demand in commodities markets [Xinhua]
As global traders continue to worry over a Chinese market slowdown and very low oil prices, emerging economies are reeling from the usual suspects of negative economic data that have seen their fortunes disappear in recent months.
A World Bank report – the Commodities Market Outlook – released on Tuesday also warned that “further economic slowdown in major emerging economies could push commodity markets lower”.

On Thursday and Friday, global markets appeared ready to reverse course from a new year slump [Xinhua]
Global markets appear to be ending the week with the first signs of recovery after a three-week period that can only be described as having taken investors on a roller-coaster ride.
On Friday, London’s FTSE opened up 2.12 per cent to 5,896. In Paris, the CAC 40 opened 3.13 per cent higher to 4,336.
Frankfurt’s DAX opened up 2.3 per cent 9,795.

According to the report in the Australian Financial Review , Dashang Group, Hailiang Group, Fucheng Group, Tianma Bearings Group and New Hope are some of the leading Chinese investors who made investments worth AU$260 million since March in Australian farms [Xinhua]Chinese investors are on the verge of securing the purchase of one of Australia’s largest grain farming properties in the wheatbelt north of Perth in Western Australia (WA).
In July and August alone last year, China invested 120 million Australian dollars in rural properties across Australia.

A woman walks past a store’s showcase in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Rampant inflation has frustrated the Rousseff administration. In 2015, the inflation rate reached almost 11 per cent [Xinhua]
For the second time in as many weeks Brazil’s Central Bank – the Banco Central do Brasil (BACEN) – has revised downward the 2016 economic growth rate, from a contraction of 2.95 to 2.99 per cent.
While the difference may not seem big at first glance, it however reflects Brazil’s recession for much of 2015 during which the economy contracted by 3.75 per cent.

The Su-35, the latest-generation Russian fighter, is expected to provide a powerful boost to the Chinese air force [Image: JSC Sukhoi]In a move bound to help the Kremlin’s strained finances, Russia will start supplying Su-35 fighter jets to China in the 4th quarter of 2016, a military-diplomatic source was quoted by Russian media on Friday.
“Supplies of fighter jets will start in the 4th quarter of this year. For now, everything goes according to plan,” a Russian military official was quoted by Tass agency.

The Chinese currency reached record high market shares in 2015 [Xinhua]China’s new yuan-denominated lending in 2015 hit 11.72 trillion yuan ($1.79 trillion), up 1.81 trillion yuan from one year earlier, latest data showed on Friday.
In December, banks’ new lending reached 597.8 billion yuan, down 345.3 billion yuan from the same month of 2014, said the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank.

The roller-coaster week in India’s benchmark Sensex appears to follow suit with much of the major global stock exchanges [Xinhua]
Asian stocks were reeling in early trading Thursday a day after the Dow Jones Industrial average fell by nearly 10 per cent year on year in the US.
On Wednesday, despite what appeared to be a promising start as oil futures rose more than two per cent, jittery investors were left wondering what impact external markets could have on the US economy.