Walmart estimates the acquisition of these products, destined for sale in its stores, will mean the creation of 750,000 jobs in the country over the next few years. The company has specified that its efforts will focus on six main product categories: plastics, textiles, small appliances, processed food, medical and pharmaceutical goods, and products for its own non-sales operations.
Iberdrola has agreed a public-private partnership with Seat and the Spanish government to build a battery factory for the electric car in Catalonia, specifically in the city of Martorell, where the automaker has its factory. However, this alliance could be open to other partners. The sources quoted in some media suggest that the investment would be around €6.8 Bn and that the project is likely to receive part of the resources from the European recovery fund.
European Views | A growing number of EU countries are voicing their concerns over Beijing’s increasing leverage as Chinese companies gain footholds in a number of essential European sectors. The Finnish intelligence community recently raised particular concerns about Huawei’s involvement in 5G networks and claimed that China & Russia are “trying to get hold of Finland’s critical infrastructure”. Dutch intelligence services, meanwhile, released a report last week arguing that Chinese cyber-espionage might pose an “imminent threat” to Dutch national security interests, particularly in key sectors including banking, energy and infrastructure.
Dina Bajramspahic via Macropolis | In 2020, none of the six countries of the Western Balkans has made progress in the process of European integration. It is true that they could have done more, but this still begs the question of whether the process itself “is working” if no one is making progress, and many countries have not been making progress for years, decades even. Bad moves on both sides have led to mutual mistrust, which is reflected in reforms.
Pablo Pardo| The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) comprises 48 countries, has four official languages, and is the largest provider of development aid in the region. Its annual loan portfolio was around $15 Bn (more than €12 Bn) before the outbreak of Covid-19, which has boosted the institution’s activity due to the ravages of the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Canadian-Brazilian Jorge da Silva has been the IDB’s Executive Auditor for eight years, where he heads a unit of 30 people dedicated to internal auditing.
Last Tuesday, the Spanish Council of Ministers gave the green light to the general guidelines of its Sustainable Development Strategy for 2030. The document stated that “the required regulatory changes for the reform of the electricity market should be addressed, putting an end to the extra compensation that certain technologies receive”. Implicitly, this refers to nuclear and hydraulic energies. However, the government has little control to make such modifications as the wholesale electricity market is under the umbrella of European regulations.
The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, will not distribute any profit to the Federal Government for the first time since 1979, following the noticeable impact that the emergency monetary policy measures implemented in response to the pandemic had on the bank’s balance sheet, which substantially strengthened its risk provisions. The German central bank’s net interest income in 2020 fell by 38.2% to €2.87 Bn, while it posted losses of €1.557 Bn for financial operations and risk write-downs against the profits of €2.281 Bn in 2019.
Steve Schifferes via The Conversation | What a difference a year makes. In March 2020, the chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced an emergency budget pledging £12 billion to tackle coronavirus. One year later, the government has already spent £280 billion, and spending by spring 2022 will exceed £400 billion. The 2021 budget – perhaps the most widely leaked in history – contains a cornucopia of short-term measures, such as the extensions to the furlough scheme and to the VAT cuts for hospitality.
Upon completion of the transaction, Telefónica and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec will each hold 50% in FiBrasil under a co-control governance model. Telefónica Group’s 50% participation will be held through Telefônica Brazil (“Vivo”) and Telefónica Infra, the infrastructure arm of Telefónica Group, each holding a stake of 25%. Operating as a neutral wholesale company, FiBrasil is set to deploy and operate fibre-optic networks in selected mid-sized cities across Brazil outside the state of Sao Paulo.
In 2020 there were 95 active Sovereign Wealth Funds managing, for the first time, more than $9 trillion around the world, which means a growth of 8% over the previous year, says the latest SWFs 2020 Report elaborated by IE University in collaboration with ICEX-Invest in Spain. At least 67 countries have a sovereign wealth fund, two more than in the 2019 study