Citigroup (NYSE:C) CEO Vikram Pandit has been all over the media lately touting the future fortune of the company, and seemingly attempting to keep the focus of the media, analysts and investors off of the extraordinary risk the company still faces.

The strategy of Citigroup, which seems like a sound and good one, is to target growth on the more affluent regions of the world with predictable emerging markets.

Pandit notes that only 33 percent of the strongest markets in the world reside in the United States, so it makes sense for the company to focus strongly on the others.

About half of all revenue growth in the years ahead are expected to come from global markets as defined above.

The obvious problem for Citigroup is they haven't come near to taking care of the damage the company continues to face, and so while attempting to make it look like they're forging ahead, while a good marketing and PR ploy, does nothing to take care of the very real challenges still facing the company.

One of the major ones is to get out from under the thumb of the government, and until that happens, there is going to be a lot of things said from the company that will fall on deaf ears until it does.

Not much can be counted on until the company shows it is really making progress, and that will be done through paying off what it owes the Federal government. If they're as sound as they're led to make potential investors and the market believe, the TARP funds would have been paid off long ago.

Either way, I do like the strategy laid out by Pandit, it's just that it doesn't deal with the very real challenges the company still faces now. Until they're dealt with, the question will continue to remain how they're going to grow with one eye always looking behind them to see if the rest of the deck of cards is about to collapse.