Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

The goods and services we buy are composed of inputs from various countries around the world. However, the flows of goods and services within these global production chains are not always reflected in conventional measures of international trade. The joint OECD – WTO Trade in Value-Added (TiVA) initiative addresses this issue by considering the value added by each country in the production of goods and services that are consumed worldwide.  TiVA indicators are designed to better inform policy makers by providing new insights into the commercial relations between nations.

Zimbabwe has released a draft amendment to its indigenisation policy, confirming that the government will not provide compensation for the 51% share it will hold in foreign-owned mining companies.

Global growth is projected to increase during 2013, as the factors underlying soft global activity are expected to subside. However, this upturn is projected to be more gradual than in the October 2012 World Economic Outlook (WEO) projections. Policy actions have lowered acute crisis risks in the euro area and the United States. But in the euro area, the return to recovery after a protracted contraction is delayed. While Japan has slid into recession, stimulus is expected to boost growth in the near term.

The electricity loads being served by today’s alternating current (AC) power grids are increasingly natively direct current (DC), at the end-use level.  In fact, according to some estimates, approximately 80 percent of the power loads in commercial and residential structures are now DC.  Along with the broad political and policy support for inverter-based native DC power sources, this is leading many industry players to conclude that it makes inherent sense to reduce DC-AC-DC conversion losses and integrate DC distribution networks into the power supply infrastructure.  According to a new report from Navigant Research, the total worldwide capacity of DC distribution networks will surpass 2.3 gigawatts (GW) by 2025, up from just 196 megawatts (MW) in 2013.

Premier Li Keqiang has diverged from the policy of his predecessor by refraining from injecting fresh liquidity into the mainland economy to ease a credit crunch on the interbank market.

Growth in the Asia-Pacific region has slowed. External headwinds played a major role, as the recovery in advanced economies suffered setbacks. Weaker momentum in China and India also weighed on regional economies. For Asia as a whole, GDP growth fell to its lowest rate since the 2008 global financial crisis during the first half of 2012. With inflationary pressures easing, macroeconomic policy stances remained generally supportive of domestic demand and in some cases were eased further in response to the slowdown. More broadly, financial conditions remain accommodative, and capital inflows have resumed. Going forward, growth is projected to pick up very gradually, and Asia should remain the global growth leader, expanding over 2 percentage points faster than the world average next year. However, considerable downside risks remain, in particular with regard to the euro area crisis. The priorities for policymakers are to support noninflationary growth, maintain financial stability, and remain responsive to weaker-than-expected outcomes. Refocusing structural and fiscal reform efforts toward sustained and more inclusive growth remains a priority.

Over the years, many attempts have been made to estimate Earth's "carrying capacity" - that is, how many humans the planet can take, and consuming at what level. The conclusions as to a sustainable population level have varied wildly, from Ehrlich's 1968 estimate of 1.5 billion to tens of billions. This year, the UK's Royal Society tried its hand. In a report entitled People and the Planet, it concluded that there is no one right answer: it all depends on technology. And it is here, in the third of Ehrlich's metrics, that there might be a glimmer of hope for peak stuff.

In its updated 5-year strategy announced today, ABB also said tight execution on cost and productivity—aiming for annual productivity improvements equivalent to 3-5 percent of cost of sales—will further contribute to increasing profitability over the period, along with targeted expansion of its service and software businesses.

ABB’s strategy is built around five components: increasing competitiveness by matching production to local market needs while driving productivity and quality improvements; capitalizing on macro trends such as emerging market growth, resource efficiency and climate change where markets are growing faster than global GDP; leveraging its leading market positions and technologies in core businesses like power grids and industrial automation to take market share; continuing its successful acquisition policy to accelerate growth in priority gap areas; and exploiting disruptive opportunities, such as direct current (DC) technologies, to enable a wide range of energy efficient automation and power solutions.