Global Economy

Making Everything Shipshape

The ports in Tacoma, Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach and elsewhere offer much shorter sailing times than Gulf Coast and East Coast ports. But for shippers of some goods, the web of logistics, including trucks and railroads, ends up being less expensive if they go through the Panama Canal.

While the widened Panama Canal will allow an all-water route for big ships to the East Coast, the project — originally scheduled to open this year — has been plagued with construction delays. And the authorities have yet to announce toll charges for passing ships. In the end, it might be too expensive for some ships to use.

Panama Adding a Wider Shortcut for Shipping

Russia pressures Moldova and Ukraine ahead of signing of E.U. Association Agreement

And in September, Russia declared that Moldovan wines did not meet Russian food-safety standards, removing access to a major export market for a key Moldovan industry. (Wines from pro-Russian autonomous regions of Moldova have been deemed safe for Russian palates, however.) Many Moldovans are convinced that the apples and grapes that grow on their nation’s gently rolling hills are the next targets. Russia is their main export market, and E.U. regulations will keep most of the fruits out of Europe even after the agreement is signed

Overall, 26 percent of Moldova’s exports go to Russia and 47 percent to the E.U.

As LED Industry Evolves, China Elbows Ahead

“LED lighting could see itself become the next solar, wind or other future opportunity that the U.S. will have given away by failing to address Chinese industrial policies and unfairly traded products,”

SolarWorld, a solar panel maker that complained to the American government about what it considered unfair advantages for Chinese competitors, was later the victim of a cyberattack by Chinese military officials, according to a recent indictment by the Justice Department.

Officials say Johnson South Reef, which China seized in 1988 after killing about 70 Vietnamese soldiers or sailors in a skirmish, is the most developed of the islands so far.

The gas flowing into Ukraine as of Monday was meant only to transit the country to Europe. “Gazprom supplies to Ukraine only the amount that has been paid for, and the amount that has been paid for is zero,” Gazprom’s spokesman, Sergei Kupriyanov, told reporters.

Second, Gazprom has provoked economic ire in Europe over its plans to build an alternative gas route under the Black Sea for the company’s exclusive use, contradicting Europe’s open access laws. That has put the future of what is known as the South Stream pipeline in doubt.

Gazprom, which has sought for the past decade to convince the Europeans that it is a reliable supplier and not an arm of Russian foreign policy, painted the dispute as strictly commercial.

Why Europe needs two euros, not one

Global flows in a digital age

Now, one in three goods crosses national borders, and more than one-third of financial investments are international transactions. In the next decade, global flows could triple,

we find that countries with a larger number of connections in the global network of flows increase their GDP growth by up to 40 percent more than less connected countries do. The penalty for being left behind is rising.

GDP: A Bad Measure of Well-Being David Henderson

In Push to Assert Rights, China Plans to Send 2nd Oil Rig to Waters Near Vietnam

though in fact many were owned by proprietors based in Taiwan

June 23, 2014 4:42 pm Q&A: The US Export-Import Bank

Dubai, Once a Humble Refueling Stop, Is Crossroad to the Globe

Five years ago, the global credit crisis brought Dubai near bankruptcy. But the city has recovered its drive, helped partly by a $10 billion bailout from neighboring Abu Dhabi, and a return of investors from the Middle East and Eastern Europe

Dubai’s success has rattled its rivals, particularly airlines in Europe and the United States, which have complained that traffic was being siphoned from their hubs.

Nicaragua approves route for $40 billion canal linking oceans

EU energy market: Pipe dream

A more competitive market also means importing new sources of gas from Azerbaijan and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as building terminals for liquefied natural gas.

France’s nuclear industry was also reticent about cheap renewable energy streaming into the French grid on an uncertain timetable.

For several months, IBM has been seeking to sell its chip-manufacturing operations

The most likely buyer is GlobalFoundries, a large contract chip manufacturer, the person said, for a price of probably less than $2 billion.

Ms. Rometty stated that while IBM’s priorities were in fields like data analytics and cloud computing, and it had agreed to sell its industry-standard computer server business to Lenovo of China for $2.3 billion, she added: “But let me be clear — we are not exiting hardware.”

Russia’s goal is not to create another North American Free Trade Agreement; it is to create another EU, with the Kremlin holding all of the real levers of power.

And, once members give up their sovereignty over fiscal, banking, and economic affairs, they may eventually need a partial political union to ensure democratic legitimacy.

But the first step is a customs union, and, in the case of the Eurasian Union, it had to include Ukraine, Russia’s largest neighbor to the west.

Alibaba Is Investing Huge Sums in an Array of U.S. Tech Companies

Statistics on Military Spending

A glance at military spending in NATO's European members

2.4 percent of GDP, British military spending exceeded $60 billion in 2013 — the highest of all European NATO members

1.9 percent last year, according to NATO statistics.

EU economic sanction on Russia won’t affect gas – Rompey

The first principle is that "the measures in the field of sensitive technologies will only affect the oil sector in view of the need to preserve EU energy security," an EU source familiar with the letter told Reuters.

The second principle of “non-retroactivity will apply across all targeted sectors, notably in the field of arms trade and restrictions on access to capital markets,” Van Rompuy wrote.