globalEDGE Blog - Page 39

With Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines starting to be carried out to the general public, one might consider, "At what point will travel and tourism pick up?"  This industry has been arguably most affected of all, and will likely face the steepest recovery timeline due to the time it will take for vaccines to be administered and for world governments to ease travel restrictions.  While many of these companies have incurred tremendous financial setbacks, they are eager and prepared to provide safe travel experiences for tourists across the globe.

As Inauguration Day nears in the U.S., talk of the Keystone XL Oil Project is on the rise. President-elect Joe Biden has been rumored to revoke the permit for the pipeline, reversing the decision made by President Trump and the Supreme Court in 2019 to approve the pipeline and grant the project a permit.

Bitcoin, the digital currency created in 2009 by the mysterious pseudonym Satoshi Nakomoto, was known by few people on earth at its inception and was priced at less than a thousandth of a cent. It has grown to a current price of around $36,000 and is now debated as either the future of money or a worthless asset. It is an extremely unique currency in the way that it is an entirely digital token with no physical backing. It was created with the intention and ability to be a peer-to-peer technology, meaning no central authority or government can control it, making it entirely decentralized. This aspect of decentralization, along with many other unique features, have led many to believe that bitcoin could revolutionize the global financial system.

The coronavirus pandemic is seeing a large and hopeful light moving forward: the vaccine. Each country is putting together different plans to face the COVID-19 pandemic head on. Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the first countries to start distributing the vaccines with varying methods. Canada and the UK are both identifying priority groups and using their national healthcare to evenly distribute the vaccine to healthcare workers and to the elderly. The United States has taken a different approach, allowing every state to define its own priority groups and how they will distribute the vaccines. The COVID-19 vaccine has been highly anticipated but has created new, unforeseen problems due to distribution and transportation. A few unexpected companies have risen up to match the challenges of distribution, storage, and space requirements.

Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A. (PSA) announced back on December 18, 2019, that they had agreed to the terms of a merger that is now coming to fruition. The new company will be called Stellantis and will be selling Alfa Romeo, Dodge muscle cars, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Opel and Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën, and Ram Trucks. With PSA being the largest automaker in France and Fiat Chrysler being the third-largest based in the United States, after the merger, Stellantis will become the world’s fourth-largest automaker following the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Toyota, and Volkswagen Group.

2020 was a year of immeasurable uncertainty in business and economics.  We saw supply chains crumble and e-commerce demand skyrocket as businesses and consumers pivoted to adjust to life in a pandemic.  While the pandemic is not yet over, widespread vaccine distribution is on the horizon, and we have seen several industries bounce back from the setbacks brought on by COVID-19.  Let’s take a look at the global business trends we can expect in 2021.

The globalEDGE team is excited to return to our regular Monday through Thursday blog schedule.  Members of our team took the time over our winter break to recharge, reflect, and explore and we are ready to hit the ground running to provide you, our readers, with new content during the spring semester.  Continue to expect timely, intriguing, and well-prepared posts that will help you learn and expand your international business knowledge.  We look forward to a great semester and, as always, we appreciate your support.

As another semester comes to a close, the globalEDGE team will be heading home for winter break.  In our first fully remote work experience, our team has been resilient and worked hard to provide our users with the most up-to-date and interesting information possible.  As a team, we appreciate your support in reading our blogs and in browsing our website and we hope that our efforts positively contributed to your learning and research goals.  So, thank you for another great semester, and we will see you soon on January 11, 2021.

As the holiday season approaches us, it is clear to everyone that the stores are going to be packed. Well maybe not physically, but virtually this year. With rising cases of the Coronavirus in the U.S., Brazil, and India, shoppers everywhere are staying safe in their homes and resorting to e-commerce to spread the holiday spirit. Retail websites will be put to the test with the high volume of shoppers to see whose advertising teams produce the most efficient and appealing designs. It will be interesting to see the differences in revenue between companies that thrive with in-store shopping as opposed to online.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020, consumption levels and prices of petroleum and other fossil fuels have dramatically decreased. With many people working from home, and not traveling for the holidays and vacations, almost every corner of the world has seen a dramatic decrease in oil demand and consumption, but will this be the future for fossil fuels?