globalEDGE Blog - Page 35

A sovereign credit rating is a measurement of a country’s creditworthiness. This rating is calculated by an agency that investigates a country’s economic and political environment. The assessment helps investors identify the risk involved in investing within another country.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has had an extremely busy year, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the IMF to respond to situations faster than ever before, and with new and innovative responses. The IMF is made up of 190 countries, including the United States, China, and the U.K., which are all original members. In the early weeks of the pandemic, the IMF saw more than 100 countries request their financial assistance, which led to the approval of $8.7 billion in emergency financing.

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.  Built in Egypt between 1865 and 1869, it serves as a way of expediting transportation between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans.  The closest alternative would be to travel around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, which would require an additional 7,000 km, which estimates out to about 8-10 additional travel days.  The Suez Canal is responsible for 13% of the world’s maritime trade, with an emphasis on the transportation of oil and natural gas.  It is reported that around one million barrels are transported through the canal daily.

On March 27, 2021, foreign ministers from China and Iran signed a cooperation agreement that is expected to massively stimulate Iran’s economy, as well as deepen China’s presence in the middle east in general. The agreement promises around $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in multiple Iranian economic sectors like banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, and health care and information technology. In exchange, China will receive a heavily discounted supply of Iranian oil for the next 25 years. Iran’s main contributors to these oil exports will likely be the government-owned National Petrochemical Company and National Iranian Oil Company.

The issue of data collection is once again being posed, however this time it involves a very well-known gambling app company in Britain, Sky Bet. After fighting his gambling addiction, a man in Britain decided to pull a request for the private data that Sky Bet collected about him, revealing multiple personal information files including his banking records, mortgage details, location coordinates, and a full portrait of his different gambling habits. After he quit gambling, Sky Bet used the personal data they had of him to label him as a “win back” customer, creating targeted ads that have led to yet another controversy surrounding data collection and usage.

Having survived the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries are looking to strengthen their security measures by controlling private information, namely the Chinese and American governments. Throughout 2020, the United States government attempted to ban the controversial app “Tik Tok” from platforms like the App Store on Apple devices because of its former ties to China. Similarly, the Chinese government is now restricting the use of Tesla’s vehicles by military and state employees as a result of privacy concerns of their own. With back and forth blows struck between the two countries, an international privacy war could be looming on the horizon.

The ads a consumer sees from day to day have changed drastically in the platform they are presented on.  While television ads and billboards were once on the cutting edge of advertising, digital ads have taken over the majority of ad spending in the United States and around the world.  Digital advertising is estimated to account for fifty-four percent of total ad spends in the United States in 2021 and is forecasted at just over fifty percent of total ad spending globally. In addition, digital advertising spending hit three hundred fifty-six billion USD in the United States in 2020.  Clearly, companies are willing to spend to have access to digital advertising.  Let’s take a look at some of the methods they use to access consumers on the internet.

What Are Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights (IP) are legal rights that protect creators’ inventions, creations, developments, etc. There are four types different types of IP: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. IP can differ from country to country, so it is important to be aware of local IP laws and enforcement.

The Coronavirus pandemic has greatly modified every aspect of modern life for over a year now. The entertainment industry has had to change in many ways to adapt to the inability to perform in-person. A previous globalEDGE blog covered how the music industry has seen a massive drop in revenue, especially since up to 80% of a musician's revenue is gained during live concerts. How have other versions of live entertainment held up during the last year, and what are they planning on doing going forward?

The exploding cannabis industry has seen the most growth in the last year as ever before and is looking for an even better 2021 with Mexico set to legalize sometime in the coming months. Assuming this does happen and Mexico follows the lead of some U.S. states, Canada, and Uruguay, they will then become the world’s largest country to legalize Cannabis with a population of 121 million. This large input of new customers will need suppliers meaning that many Cannabis companies across the U.S. and Latin America are looking to seek substantial growth when the bill officially passes.