As part of the European Digital Strategy, the European Commission proposed two legislative initiatives to end the regulatory fragmentation in the […]
Category: Business Intelligence
At a time when China’s Tech Giants have reached and even surpassed their US counterparts, India’s Tech sector lags behind its East Asian rival in scale and scope. Yet, India is among the top three global economies in number of digital consumers. with 560 million internet subscriptions in 2018, up from 238.71 million in 2013, India is the second-largest internet subscriptions market in the world. In this Business Intelligence focus, we explore the challenges and opportunities associated with the ascent of Digital India
Hydrogen as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry Since the first demonstrations of water electrolysis some two hundred years ago, […]
China is the world’s largest car market with over 25 million vehicles sold in 2019, of which 1.2 million is comprised of EVs – around 55% of all EVs sold in the world that year.
China’s support to its EV industry is moving from a quantitative to a qualitative approach and from op-down heavy handed industrial policies to a market based approach supported by environmental incentives. This is reflected in the New roadmap for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) for the 2021-2035 that has been published by the State Council.
The Chinese authorities are increasing their oversight of the country’s large Internet platforms.
The publication of the Draft Measures for the regulation of online trading (网络交易监督管理办法 – 征求意见稿) by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation China’s version of a global regulatory effort to prevent and to sanction some abusive practices which stem from the Platforms market power and dominant positions. The latest regulations put their focus on multihoming and other principles which are key for ensuring a fair competition in the digital age. Article 31 of the Draft Regulations prohibits abuses of market dominance by online trading operators.
Case number AT. 40462 On 17/07/2019, the Commission decided to initiate antitrust proceedings in case AT.40462 Amazon Marketplace. The proceedings […]
According to Iran Daily, the Iranian government amended its regulations on cryptocurrencies to allow them to be exclusively used for funding imports, at a time of increased pressure on the country’s FX reserves. The move is illustrative of a tendency among a number of Petrostates like Russia, Kazakhstan and Venezuela to support through energy subsidies. the development of a homegrown crypto-currency mining. It could allow these countries to hedge and ultimately to significantly lower their exposure to the US dollar and US financial institutions. The Iranian move also shows that crypto-mining is an emerging global industry in its own right which has moved from being considered as an outcast to being treated as a strategic asset.
The measures taken by the Trump Administration against Chinese technology firms go far beyond Huawei. The latest casualty is SMIC, China’s flagship semiconductor fabrication firm. China’s semiconductors industry is now having difficult times. The US-China dispute has morphed into a commercial embargo against Chinese semiconductors industry. It involves non-Chinese and non-US companies, first and foremost Taiwan’s TSMC and Korea’s Samsung. It could have far reaching consequences, leading to a new restructuring of this global industry.
Revisiting George Kennan’s Containment Argument In February 1946, George Kennan, then an American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famed “Long […]
Biden’s plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice is a watered down and more realistic version of the Green New Deal championed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). It aims to reach net-zero emissions no later than 2050, which would put US environmental ambitions on par with the latest Green Deal proposal put forward by the European Commission, through a legislative enforcement mechanism in 2021 that would achieve legally-binding emissions reductions. We analyze the general philosophy, the technical measures and the potential impact of this plan.