Over the weekend, S&P Global Ratings upgraded Greece’s sovereign credit rating to Positive. Simultaneously, S&P decided to keep Italy’s rating at Stable, showing a divergent path for the two economies.… read more →
In 2023, environmental and climate issues will again be at the top of the policy agenda in the Middle East and North Africa. The upcoming COP28 climate conference in Dubai and the rapid growth in the renewables sector in Egypt and North Africa both point to the growing power of MENA states within global climate politics.
Quite often, trade does not happen directly between the producer of the raw material, the manufacturer and the end user. The supply chain process involved are complex, with each point in the journey ‘adding value’ and potentially adding to the “sustainability footprint” of the product.
South Korea has formally restored Japan to its list of countries it gives preferential treatment in trade, three years after the neighbours downgraded each other’s trade status amid a diplomatic… read more →
As the commodity trading industry looks back on Q1 of 2023, it is evident that the first three months of the year have been marked by a number of significant events.
Today, the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariat and the World Bank Group announced their pilot initiative, Action on Climate and Trade (ACT), to help developing… read more →
British trade minister Nigel Huddleston signed a trade deal with the U.S. state of Oklahoma while in Washington. The British embassy noted that while on the trip, Huddleston hailed another… read more →
Today, Standard Chartered and the IFC announced the signing of a $700 million investment in the IFC’s Global Trade Liquidity Programme (GTLP) in support of global trade finance. Since the… read more →
Saying the world’s oceans are vast is an understatement. If one were to sail from Cape Town to Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote inhabited island, located over 2,000 kilometres to the nearest land, the voyage would take longer than it took Apollo 11 to reach the moon.
ESG is certainly not a new development, but its growth and importance in financial services have never been higher. Whilst there has been a big focus on the “E” in ESG, we’re also seeing a lot of progress in tackling other aspects, such as social action to address societal challenges. One of the biggest social challenges in global trade is the huge, and growing, finance gap.
