Archive for January, 2024

China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) In Southeast Asia: Progress And Challenges

Via Eurasia Review, a look at China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) in Southeast Asia: This year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI has become China’s flagship foreign policy to realise the Chinese vision of a “global community of  shared future.”[1] […]

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Putting 10,000 EVs on African Roads, the Hard Way

Courtesy of Rest of World, an article on Benin-based Spiro’s efforts to exchange old bikes for electric models across four African countries: In less than two years, Cotonou-headquartered EV company Spiro has put more than 10,000 e-bikes on roads across four African countries. But experts believe the company is incurring huge costs that will make […]

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To Know Where the World Economy Is Headed, Look at the Bottom of a Toy Car

Courtesy of The Washington Post, an interesting commentary on global manufacturing and emerging economies: What if I said you could read real world history on the underside of your kids’ Hot Wheels? In my Philippine childhood in the 1970s, my brother Hector and I played with die-cast toy cars. I remember the first time I […]

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Chinese Firms To Invest $7B in DRC Mining Infrastructure

Via Reuters, a report on plans by Chinese companies to invest up to $7 billion in Democratic Republic of Congo mining infrastructure: Chinese construction companies will invest up to $7 billion in infrastructure projects as part of an agreement over their Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they said […]

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Saudi Arabia’s Ambitious African Economic Safari

Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic foray into Africa as part of its drive to become a global power that is less reliant on energy: The monarchy hosted a Saudi-Arab-African economic conference in Riyadh in November, where it committed more than $500m into projects and investments in Africa through […]

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Indonesia and Ghana: Beneficiaries of New World Bank $100M Plastic Credits Bond

Courtesy of the Financial Times, a report on an innovative new bond to combat waste, with repayments partially determined by sale of plastic and carbon offset credits: The World Bank and Citi have launched a $100mn bond to combat waste, with repayments partly determined by the sale of plastic and carbon offset credits. The bond, […]

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WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.