GREECE has been hogging headlines lately, but emerging markets have also had their share of tribulations with the Chinese stock market in convulsions and the Brazilian economy and currency hitting the skids.

    China’s stock exchange has been in free fall since mid-June, undergoing a 30 percent correction after having posted a dizzying 150 percent rise the previous 12 months.

    Failure to stop the slide has crushed small investors — who account for most of the market — and rattled confidence in the government.

    But it has transpired as China’s economic growth has slowed and manufacturing surveys show contraction, rippling across the globe as more and more companies depend on the world’s No. 2 economy.

    The powerful Federation of German Industries recently noted that “German companies were definitely prepared for a slowdown in Chinese growth but were nevertheless surprised by the extreme jolts on the stock market.”

    The Chinese slowdown has also hammered commodity prices, weighing on the fortunes of countries which produce and export key raw materials.

    That has complicated the situation for Brazil, which not so long ago had been hoping to ride the commodities boom to top rank economic status, but has instead found itself stuck in a seven-year stretch of zero or negative growth.

    The Brazilian real has tumbled to a 12-year low against the dollar, forcing the country’s central bank to jack interest rates up to 14.25 percent to stabilize the currency and curb inflation. The government, meantime, has had to scale back its fiscal savings plans in order to prop up the economy.

    Brazil is in good company in having its money pummelled, with fellow emerging markets like Mexico, South Africa, Colombia and Turkey also witnessing their currencies slide to multi-year lows.(SD-Agencies)