Via The Diplomat, an article on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway for which construction is to begin in October, a railway that Kyrgyzstan hopes will make it “a transit country for the world”: Construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway will begin in October, according to Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov. Speaking during a working trip to Osh on May […]
Read more »Via the Lowy Institute, a report on the cable ties to China’s Digital Silk Road: Technological competition between the United States and China is transforming the physical connections that make up the digital world and its governance. China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” eventually incorporated digital connectivity under the rubric Digital Silk Road in an effort to leverage […]
Read more »Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how international development agencies have been meeting with Middle East business interests and urban planners to map out an economic future for the territory: On a December morning in central London, more than two dozen people drawn from influential institutions across the Middle East, Europe and […]
Read more »Via Emerging Europe, an article on Albania: Challenges there may be, but Albania’s economy is broadly in a good place. A boom in tourism is driving growth at levels above most of its regional peers. While tourism across most of the world has broadly recovered from the massive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in a […]
Read more »Via ScienceDirect, a new journal article examining the ugly side of the Africa-UAE (United Arab Emirates) gold trade: gold export misreporting and smuggling. Highlights • Africa-UAE gold trade is characterized by overwhelming misreporting and smuggling. • Export misreporting and smuggling exhibit some persistence behavior. • Export tax, the gold price, and institutional factors are the […]
Read more »Via Caixin Global, a report on a revamped minerals-for-infrastructure deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and China: A revamped minerals-for-infrastructure deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and China that will send billions of dollars in financing to the Central African nation is contingent on the price of copper, according to a newly published […]
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