Dam-building is an area where environmentalists can claim a rare degree of success; the need to relocate people slowed hydropower’s progress during the previous five-year plan (2006-10). China’s hydro capacity nonetheless grew by over 80%, from 117 gigawatts (gw) in 2005 to over 210 gw in 2010. Officials are reportedly targeting 284 gw of conventional hydropower and 41 gw of pumped storage, or 325 gw in total, by 2015; the Economist Intelligence Unit thinks a gush of dam-building will take total hydro capacity to just under 300 gw by then. By 2020, however, we expect slower installations growth, to 332 gw. This will fall short of the government’s reported target of 380 gw (which it is rumoured may be raised to 430 gw), including 330 gw of conventional hydro and 50 gw of pumped storage.

China’s best-laid hydro plans are likely to go awry due to the difficulty of harnessing ever more inaccessible water resources. Growing concerns about the environmental costs of dam-building, and local-level opposition to human relocation caused by hydro projects, will also have an impact. Such factors, together with stiff domestic competition, will push Chinese hydro companies on overseas adventures. They are already proceeding with vigour: International Rivers, a non-governmental organisation, has traced the involvement of Sinohydro, the world’s biggest hydropower firm, in 195 (sometimes controversial) dam projects in 60 countries.

The state of Spanish banks represents the biggest worry. The country’s property bust is only halfway finished, if Ireland’s experience is anything to go by. Spain’s aggressive commitment to austerity and eye-watering unemployment rate are also major concerns, particularly when it comes to borrowers keeping up with their sizeable debt burdens.

For his part, Alfredo Saenz, chief executive of Santander, thinks that anyone citing mortgage delinquencies as a problem for the Spanish financial system is “saying something stupid”. It is difficult to explain, however, why Spain’s modest mortgage delinquency rate, at less than 3%, looks so out of sync with its extreme unemployment rate, at nearly 24%. A non-performing mortgage ratio on par with Ireland’s would boost the stock of dud housing debt in Spain nearly five-fold. A decline in loan quality on this scale would indeed push many Spanish lenders into a bail-out.

Limiting the rescue to the country’s banks—without also pushing the beleaguered sovereign over the edge—is the best case scenario for Spain, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. To some, this makes us sound stupid. It is a risk we are willing to take.

There are some reasons to think that GSK is simply taking advantage of a downturn at HGS. Until recently, the US company’s share price was far higher, but it has tumbled sharply thanks largely to disappointing sales of its breakthrough drug Benlysta. In March 2011, Benlysta (belimumab) became the first new treatment for Lupus and other autoimmune illnesses to be approved by the FDA for 56 years. Though an estimated 5m people have Lupus worldwide, the treatment costs £35,000, a difficult price to justify when pharma budgets are so tight. As a result, initial predictions that the drug would bring in annual revenues of US$2.2bn have been rapidly downgraded. Its peak sales, in 2015 or thereabouts, now look likely to be around a third of that total.

Yet there are grounds for thinking that GSK has underestimated HGS’s value. The US company’s two late-stage pipeline drugs, for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, have potential in large, if crowded, markets if they get through final trials. Moreover, the synergies with GSK in particular are obvious, given their previous research work together,  offering a chance to reduce costs and maximise sales.

HGS may therefore talk GSK into offering more, though the precedent from Illumina’s failed attempt to bounce Switzerland’s Roche into upping its US$6.8bn bid is not encouraging. Moreover, if GSK (like Roche) in the end decides to walk away, then the UK company’s inside knowledge, as well as its 50% share in the Benlysta revenues, may make others wary of stepping in. So far that seems to be a risk HGS is prepared to take.

Only one company, the Pnomh Penh Water Supply Authority, listed its shares at the market’s April 18th opening. The stock closed the week with a gain of more than 60%, with 1.7m shares worth around 17trn riel (US$4.1m) changing hands. State-owned telecoms and port operators are next in line for listings, possibly later this year. A KRX official expects “dozens” of IPOs in Cambodia in the coming years. The Busan-based exchange operator is also eyeing Myanmar, where Japanese rivals have signed a preliminary agreement with the government to establish a new stock market by 2015. There is already a securities market in Yangon, but in its current state it won’t offer much competition.

That said, the fall in profit—its first in decades—and the loss of market share to Asda and Sainsbury generated unease among shareholders and highlighted a need to address significant challenges in Tesco’s home market. Tesco still controls a sizeable 30% of the UK retail market, but this share is slowly eroding.

Despite his vigour in addressing the problem, many of the initiatives unveiled by Mr Clarke are not new, something that he admits in statements accompanying the group’s latest results. Rather than innovating, Mr Clarke’s focus for Tesco is a “back to basics” attempt to re-engage with consumers via store facelifts, relaunching the value range and boosting customer satisfaction. In the online space, Tesco’s domestic strategy is more of a departure, especially if it seeks to challenge pure-play e-tailers such as Amazon by allowing third-party sellers into its online marketplace. This could be an important asset in improving choice and availability for web-savvy shoppers.

The scale of Mr Clarke’s commitment to the UK is notable for the size of the investment he’s committing to the project: £400m on store facelifts and £600m on increased staffing levels. A billion pounds is a lot of money, but for Tesco it only amounts to 1.5% of group revenue, and just over a quarter of group profit.

The biggest gamble, then, is not the amount that Mr Clarke is investing, but the fact that it is directed at operations in the UK. A slight fall in profit and market share in the country is a concern but, given the general weakness in the British economy, embattled consumers are still likely to favour price over the renewed service that Mr Clarke is investing in.

Emphasising the domestic could spurn much stronger opportunities elsewhere, especially fast-growing emerging markets in Asia. Over the past five years, Tesco’s average annual UK profit growth is only around a fifth of growth at its operations in Asia. Tesco’s multinational competitors are expressing commitments to new markets in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. They are also watching India very carefully as the retail market gradually opens. It is worth shareholders asking whether £1bn might go further if it is invested in these markets.

No doubt, OpCapita has done plenty of due diligence to secure the approval of six banks owed an estimated £85m by Game. It probably picked up Game for next to nothing, judging by the late timing of its intervention, and stands to inherit a leaner operation, considering the closures and redundancies already announced. Ultimately, Game failed because it lost the confidence of big video game makers, which refused to supply it. If OpCapita can restructure its debt and restore confidence, Game’s immediate situation will improve.

Unfortunately, computer games are increasingly being sold through online channels. With their bricks-and-mortar overheads, high-street retailers cannot easily compete on price, or, indeed, on the convenience of online sales. The growing popularity of app downloads for smartphones and tablets is an additional challenge. EuroGamer, a website, reckons UK videogame sales shrank by 13% in 2011 to £2.5bn. In future, consoles could well become the preserve of a dedicated core of gamers, too small to interest or support a mass-market retailer.

Even so, Games Workshop has somehow retained a high-street presence in the increasingly niche market for role-playing games, and could provide lessons for OpCapita. Games Workshop’s success owes much to the vertical integration of its supply chain; for its part, OpCapita could also explore synergies between Game and Comet, an electronics retailer it bought for a symbolic £2 late last year. More likely, OpCapita will attempt to diversify Game’s activities to appeal to a broader market. But that will require investment and rebranding, and it will expose Game to competition from more generalist retailers.

The government is also greeting the news as a triumph for yesterday’s business-centred budget - and it is. The patent box plan actually dates back to the previous Labour government and was always intended to kick in during 2013. But the coalition, after a consultation, has broadened its reach in order to increase the benefits to the pharma industry. Under the patent box, businesses will pay just 10% tax, rather than the 22% set in the current budget, on any profits arising from newly commercialised patents in the UK.

GSK has been lobbying for years for this new regime to be introduced to underpin its investment plans in the UK, while AstraZeneca has previously said that it will increase its investment in UK research into diabetes, cancer and respiratory disease in response to the plan. The lower tax should help to prevent the companies shifting spending towards new research bases in Asia, including China and India, as they try to refill their drug pipelines and keep a lid on spending. GSK’s revenues have been hit by patent expiries for drugs such as Valtrex and Advair, as well safety concerns over its diabetes drug Avandia.

But while industry has applauded the patent box, it has also drawn some criticism. The UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies has said it will lead to a large reduction in UK tax receipts, is “poorly targeted at promoting research” and will “add complexity to the tax system”.  It also warns that the tax cut could well be copied by other countries, prompting pharma companies to shift their investment again. That, of course, is always a threat, but by committing to building a plant GSK has signalled that it is sticking to the UK for a good few years yet.

Justification for Novartis’s spending came this week from the Financial Times which quoted data showing that Novartis also topped the list when it came to patent applications in 2009. According to IP law firm Withers & Rogers, the Swiss company’s tally of 368 filings was around twice as many as second-placed Sanofi. And it was over six times as many as Abbott and GSK, which shared the distinction of being the least productive of the top ten pharma companies.

More worryingly, the Withers & Rogers data showed that the overall numbers of patent filings has dropped sharply in recent years. Only 129 “patent families” of drugs in leading markets were sought by the top ten drug companies in 2009, down from 189 in 2007. Though the FT calls the numbers an “imperfect snapshot” of what is going on in the industry, they do once again suggest that pharma companies are finding it hard to convert their R&D spending into experimental drugs – let alone into drug approvals.

The decision to sue the FDA is certainly a gamble: AstraZeneca seems to have decided that the costs of the lawsuit are far lower than the losses it will incur when Seroquel’s patent expires. The drug generated sales of US$4.3bn worldwide last year, of which US$3.3bn was in the US. If AZ does succeed in its argument over labelling requirements and data exclusivity rights, then this might give it (and other companies) another way of extending protection for drugs that are coming off patent. AZ, which is one of the hardest-hit by the patent cliff, calculates that it lost almost US$2bn in revenue during 2011 as a result of generic competition.

Other companies have tried different tactics – Pfizer, for example, struck exclusivity deals with pharmacy benefits managers to protect sales of Lipitor after itsUSpatent expired late last year. But with the mood in theUSfirmly against attempts by patented drug-makers to block generic competition, the likelihood of AZ winning its case seems remote, raising the question of how much its lawsuit may damage its relationship with the FDA.

Either scenario would rile global energy markets. Around 20% of the world’s traded oil passes through the Strait, so any closure—even for a few days—would push up prices significantly. And it’s not just oil: the Strait is also an important export outlet for liquid natural gas (LNG), with Qatar, the world’s largest LNG supplier, shipping 25% of the world’s LNG through the passage in 2010.

According to the International Energy Agency, just over 15.5m b/d of crude oil and 1.3m b/d of oil products flowed through the Strait of Hormuz between January and October 2011. Around three-quarters of this crude was directed to markets in Asia-Pacific, highlighting the region’s significant dependence on Middle East oil supply compared with North America and Europe. Japan has historically been dependent on Middle East oil, and the two rising economic powers of Asia, China and India, rely heavily on the region for crude oil supply as well.

The nature of the oil market is such that a closure of the Strait would impact on oil-consuming economies globally. However, should there be a series of events that causes the Strait to be closed to outgoing oil tanker traffic, the graph above shows that Asia in particular will suffer collateral damage.