China-Russia emerging as large trading partners
Beijing: China is emerging as a top investor in oil and resources-rich Russia. Chinese investments have risen by 131.5 per cent in Russia in 2006 amid record bilateral trade volume. China invested in 79 projects in Russia last year and Chinese investment, excluding the financial sector, touched $470 million, up 131.5 per cent year-on-year.

Chinese funds targeted sectors like energy, development of mineral resources, forestry, trade, light and textiles industry, household electric appliance, telecommunications, construction and services in Russia.

Russia invested in 126 projects in the fields of manufacturing, construction and transportation in China last year, with contracted investment topping $230 million, latest Chinese official statistics said. Trade volume between China and Russia hit a reco rd $33.4 billion in 2006, up 15 per cent from the previous year.
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Credit Suisse appoints new CEO
Zurich: Credit Suisse has appointed its American investment banking chief Brady Dougan as chief executive to succeed Oswald Grübel, who surprised investors by announcing his resignation from May.

Brady Dougan has run Credit Suisse's investment banking unit since 2004.

Dougan (47) has a track record of reaching his targets ahead of time ever since arriving at Credit Suisse in 1990. He becomes chief executive after more than tripling the group's investment banking profits in 2006, to 5.9 billion Swiss francs, or $4.8 billion. Today, his investment banking unit reported 2.3 billion francs in pretax profit for the fourth quarter of 2006, exceeding analysts' expectations.

Paul Calello, head of the Asia-Pacific region for Credit Suisse, will succeed Mr. Dougan as head of the investment banking business.
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Microsoft forecasts drop in operating cost growth
Microsoft Corp has forecast a smaller increase in expenses in coming months after huge expenditure incurred in promoting its new Windows this year.

Steve Ballmer Microsoft chief executive officer said there would be a ``small drop'' in the growth in operating expenses in the year starting July 1, after an unexpected $2.7 billion increase in the budget this period, said at a meeting in New York today. He also said some analysts' projections for Windows sales are too high. For Microsoft the spending will help fight Google Inc which continues to dominate in winning money from Web advertising, and Microsoft still is losing market share two years after releasing its own search engine. Shares of Microsoft fell 25 cents to $29.21 in extended trading. They rose 6 cents to $29.46 as of 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.
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