Pension assets in the CEE region are set to boom from €50.8bn in 2008 to €244.9bn in 2015, according to a new report from Allianz Global Investors. 

Latvia’s capital, Riga, has been the scene of days of riots after a peaceful anti-government demonstration by an estimated 10,000 people turned violent in mid-January.

Investors in Mongolia say the country’s lively but fractured political landscape is putting the economy at risk and holding back significant investments by foreign multinationals.

On November 22, Qatar opened its Museum of Islamic Art, in a stunning building designed by I.M. Pei. It was the latest salvo in the multi-billion-dollar competition for the title of cultural capital of the Gulf.

In late November, the UAE government quietly announced the creation of a new federal bank, called Emirates Development Bank, that will merge the assets of two large mortgage banks from Dubai – Amlak and Tamweel – and one smaller mortgage bank from Abu Dhabi, the Real Estate Bank.

November was a bumper month for Somali pirates, who managed to capture a super-tanker carrying US$100mn of Saudi oil, while also successfully ransoming a vessel bearing millions of dollars worth of Ukrainian arms.

The Viennese business and social world is reeling from a scandal exposed in November, involving the biggest real estate company in eastern Europe, some of the country’s top aristocracy, and a missing £450mn.

Pension assets in the CEE region are set to boom from €50.8bn in 2008 to €244.9bn in 2015, according to a new report from Allianz Global Investors. 

DIFC Investments, the investment arm of the Dubai International Financial Centre, launches DIFC Global, a new subsidiary that provides a global network of premium business centres and corporate services that support companies in developing their international business.

The EU commission on competition has raised concerns about the Austrian government’s €2.7bn bail-out of Erste Bank at the end of October. Erste Bank is one of the largest banks in Austria and in central and eastern Europe.

The managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has sent a letter to the G-20 heads of government and institutions, saying the IMF’s funds could be perceived as “inadequate” to deal with the global financial crisis, and calling on the G-20 to provide more money.

The governor of the Bank of Latvia, Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, says he is confident that Latvia is not going the way of Iceland. “The short-term debt of Iceland is twice as high as the total gross external debt of Latvia. Moreover, half of the banks’ short-term debt is in fact long-term”, he told an investor conference in London on November 4.