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Despite significant world events, such as the Japanese tsunami and Arab Spring, the global hotel industry experienced its second year of growth in 2011, surpassing its 2008 peak. A recovery in Western Europe and strong growth in Asia Pacific were key drivers behind this. Hotels continued to innovate to deliver the best guest experience by reinventing their food and beverage programmes, as well as their lobbies, rooms and service.

BMI View: We retain our cautious view of the impact of the political situation in Bahrain on its economy and public spending initiatives, including healthcare. While we envisage the preference for patented drugs to remain in place over the coming decade, epidemiological and demographic pressures will combine to increase the need for cost-containment in regards to public spending. Nevertheless, Bahrain's pharmaceutical market growth is expected to remain ahead of its GDP development, as the country continues to invest heavily in its health infrastructure.

IRAMED GmbH (IRAMED) is a medical device company, based in Germany. It manufactures the products in the fields of endoscopy, urology, radiology and cardiology. The company's products include movystar, easyflex, movytax, flexystar, angiomarker, drainage, nasal bile duct drainage sets, transpapillary bile duct, drainage sets, vasectomy, nephrostomy and intrauterine drainage. It's Intrauterine Drainage-Set contains puncture Needle 19 Gauge, 25cm long with Pusher 5 French, 24cm long, hollow Needle 15 Gauge 20cm long with removable adapter. The company provides solutions and designs products for particular customer problems with special focus on minimal invasive devices. IRAMED offers intrauterine drainage-set for prenatal therapy. The company was incorporated in 1984. IRAMED is headquartered in Wegberg-Arsbeck, Germany.

Weight management products continued to benefit growing obesity and overweight problems in Germany towards 2011, while at same time also face threats from alternative products. Challenges facing weight management come from activities of manufacturers of branded and private label packaged food products focusing on health and wellness, for example in the form of many new reduced fat products. In addition, the category had to deal with negative media reports once again, indicating that most of the...

GlobalData, the industry analysis specialist, has released its new report, "Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST) Therapeutics - Pipeline Assessment and Market Forecasts to 2019". The report is an essential source of information and analysis on the global Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST) Therapeutics market. The report identifies the key trends shaping and driving the global Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST) Therapeutics market. The report also provides insights on the prevalent competitive landscape and the emerging players expected to significantly alter the market positioning of the current market leaders. Most importantly, the report provides valuable insights on the pipeline products within the global Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST) Therapeutics sector. This report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research and in-house analysis by GlobalData's team of industry experts.

Samsung is a geographically diverse player. The majority of its sales take place in major appliances; however, it is also present in small appliances, primarily in vacuum cleaners. Samsung was an early mover in the Indian market and is now reaping the rewards with India generating the largest part of its global volume sales in 2011. Samsung, however, is primarily focused on consumer electronics with consumer appliances making up only a relatively small proportion of its overall global sales.

During a period of restricted discretionary spend and low consumer confidence, it is imperative that retailers know who their core customer base is and how they should be targeting them. UK Customer Insights 2012 are based around individual retailers and provide a highly detailed, data-rich overview of a retailer's customers, including shopper profiles and the drivers of loyalty and disloyalty

Since the collapse of the country's construction sector, Spanish consumers have been facing significant challenges. These are not expected to abate as drastic austerity measures imposed by the government trickle down into consumers' household budgets. In addition, there seems to be little short-term relief from the very high level of unemployment. These and other factors are expected to significantly affect Spanish consumers' behaviour in the coming months and years.

Core Views With households still in the midst of deleveraging and weakening external conditions, New Zealand's real GDP growth is likely to remain very weak in 2012, and our 1.7% forecast is below consensus expectations of 2.1%. More painful cutbacks will be necessary, but as the domestic savings rate rises, the country's vulnerability to external shocks will decline in line with a strengthened net exports outlook. The interest rate cutting cycle, while had been on hold for Q112, is not yet over and will likely to resume in Q2. Debt deleveraging will continue to undermine money supply growth, which should turn negative in H212, reducing consumer price inflation to an average of 2.5% in 2012. New Zealand will see its 40-year run of current account deficits come to an end by 2013 as foreign investors become increasingly reluctant to finance New Zealand's imports as the domestic economy slows. A strong trade surplus, assisted by a weakening currency, will aid this process and will allow the country to gradually pay back its huge external liabilities, reducing vulnerability to external shocks. The re-election of John Key and his New Zealand National Party is an all-around positive for New Zealand's economy and business environment. Pro-saving policies will be further developed, helping the country to become less vulnerable to external shocks over the long term. We have upgraded New Zealand's short-term political risk rating from 82.3 to 85.2 owing to improvements in the 'policymaking process' and 'policy continuity' categories. Major Forecast Changes We have downgraded our outlook for New Zealand fiscal balance and expect it to only return to surplus in FY2015/16, although we have maintained our forecast of a 7.7% deficit in FY2011/12. Moreover, with the government's recent efforts to implement expenditure cuts over the coming years, which should see net debt hit a peak of 32.0% by 2014. Key Risks To Outlook The most pertinent risk comes from a banking crisis in neighbouring Australia, which would likely spread to New Zealand given the external borrowing of local banks. While not our core view, this could trigger a severe debt deflation spiral on the island. Another related risk comes from a global recession, brought about by a recession in the US and potentially China. This would hit the price of New Zealand's export commodities and corporate profits. On the positive side, there is a risk that further interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Reserve Bank of Australia, could trigger a revival of the housing market, similar to what was seen in Australia in 2009. This poses upside risks to our weak growth forecast. Business

BMI View: Australia is on track to become the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in the latter half of the current decade, surpassing Qatar as a series of major projects enter service. However, there are question marks over the costs of Australian LNG relative to other suppliers. The boom in construction of LNG export capacity should drive investment over the coming years, with as much as US$200bn to be spent on up to 18 new schemes or project expansion projects. While gas exports are set to rise rapidly, Australia will also have to contend with a growing reliance on oil imports as domestic production declines.