Which countries will see the most economic growth in 2024?

To answer this question, we’ve visualized GDP growth forecasts from the IMF’s October 2023 World Economic Outlook. Unsurprisingly, many of these countries are located in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa—two of the world’s fastest growing regions.

Country	Region	GDP Growth 2024 (%)
Macao SAR	Asia Pacific	27.2
Guyana	Americas	26.6
Palau	Asia Pacific	12.4
Niger	Sub-Saharan Africa	11.1
Senegal	Sub-Saharan Africa	8.8
Libya	Middle East and North Africa	7.5
Rwanda	Sub-Saharan Africa	7.0
Côte d’Ivoire	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.6
Burkina Faso	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.4
Benin	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.3
India	Asia Pacific	6.3
The Gambia	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.2
Ethiopia	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.2
Cambodia	Asia Pacific	6.1
Tanzania	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.1
Bangladesh	Asia Pacific	6.0
Djibouti	Middle East and North Africa	6.0
Burundi	Sub-Saharan Africa	6.0
Philippines	Asia Pacific	5.9
Vietnam	Asia Pacific	5.8
World Average	—	2.9

For India, data and forecasts are presented on a fiscal year basis (starting April). Continue reading below for additional context on these figures.

Highlights: Asia Pacific

The fastest growing economies in Asia are forecasted to be Macao (+27.2%), Palau (+12.4%), and India (+6.3%).

• Palau is a tiny country consisting of 340 islands, representing an overall land area of 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). According to the U.S. State Department, tourism represents approximately 40% of Palau’s GDP.
• India, which recently became the world’s largest country by population, is expected to reach a peak of 1.7 billion people by 2064.

Highlights: Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for half of the top 20 list, with Niger (+11.1%) and Senegal (+8.8%) leading.

• Senegal’s economy is also linked to the oil industry, meaning its growth could fluctuate in the years to come.

Oil Drives Growth for Guyana

Guyana (+26.6%), with a population of only 815,000, is expected to be the second fastest growing economy in 2024. Interestingly, it was the world’s fastest growing economy last year, with a 62% increase in GDP, and is likely to claim that title again in 2023 with expected growth of 37%.

This growth is largely driven by rising oil exports from Stabroek Block, an offshore oil field being developed by an Exxon Mobil-led consortium. According to BBC, Guyana has over 11 billion barrels in oil reserves.

This content was originally published here.

The post Ranked: The Fastest Growing Economies In 2024 appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Which countries are the global innovation powerhouses?

In many ways, the past year has represented an inflection point in technological advancement. Almost overnight, OpenAI’s large language model ChatGPT became a household name and AI was within reach to the masses.

Yet looking under the surface, innovation is influenced by several unseen factors, from the institutional environment and high-tech exports to research talent and entrepreneurship culture.

This graphic shows the most innovative countries in the world, based on the 2023 Global Innovation Index (GII) put together by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

How is Innovation Measured?

The GII framework uses seven pillars and 80 indicators to assess a country’s innovative strength:

Innovation Pillar	Example Indicators
Knowledge & Tech Outputs	Patent applications, Hi-tech manufacturing
Human Capital & Research	Researchers per million population, Global corporate R&D investors
Business Sophistication	Knowledge-intensive employment, University-industry R&D collaboration
Market Sophistication	Finance for startups, Venture capital received
Creative Outputs	Trademark applications, Global brand value
Infrastructure	Environmental performance, Information and communication technology access
Institutions	Regulatory quality, Policies for doing business

Together, the sum of these pillars produces an overall score for each country.

Most Innovative Countries in 2023

For the 13th consecutive year, Switzerland was named the world’s most innovative country.

Among the key factors underscoring its rank are its policies for doing business and its scale of patent applications. Its world-class research institutions and skilled workforce are also key ingredients in fostering innovation.

Below, we show the most innovative countries in 2023 across 132 economies:

Rank	Country	Score
1	Switzerland	67.6
2	Sweden	64.2
3	U.S.	63.5
4	UK	62.4
5	Singapore	61.5
6	Finland	61.2
7	Netherlands	60.4
8	Germany	58.8
9	Denmark	58.7
10	South Korea	58.6
11	France	56.0
12	China	55.3
13	Japan	54.6
14	Israel	54.3
15	Canada	53.8
16	Estonia	53.4
17	Hong Kong SAR	53.3
18	Austria	53.2
19	Norway	50.7
20	Iceland	50.7
21	Luxembourg	50.6
22	Ireland	50.4
23	Belgium	49.9
24	Australia	49.7
25	Malta	49.1
26	Italy	46.6
27	New Zealand	46.6
28	Cyprus	46.3
29	Spain	45.9
30	Portugal	44.9
31	Czech Republic	44.8
32	UAE	43.2
33	Slovenia	42.2
34	Lithuania	42.0
35	Hungary	41.3
36	Malaysia	40.9
37	Latvia	39.7
38	Bulgaria	39.0
39	Türkiye	38.6
40	India	38.1
41	Poland	37.7
42	Greece	37.5
43	Thailand	37.1
44	Croatia	37.1
45	Slovakia	36.2
46	Vietnam	36.0
47	Romania	34.7
48	Saudi Arabia	34.5
49	Brazil	33.6
50	Qatar	33.4
51	Russia	33.3
52	Chile	33.3
53	Serbia	33.1
54	North Macedonia	33.0
55	Ukraine	32.8
56	Philippines	32.2
57	Mauritius	32.1
58	Mexico	31.0
59	South Africa	30.4
60	Moldova	30.3
61	Indonesia	30.3
62	Iran	30.1
63	Uruguay	30.0
64	Kuwait	29.9
65	Georgia	29.9
66	Colombia	29.4
67	Bahrain	29.1
68	Mongolia	28.8
69	Oman	28.4
70	Morocco	28.4
71	Jordan	28.2
72	Armenia	28.0
73	Argentina	28.0
74	Costa Rica	27.9
75	Montenegro	27.8
76	Peru	27.7
77	Bosnia and Herzegovina	27.1
78	Jamaica	27.1
79	Tunisia	26.9
80	Belarus	26.8
81	Kazakhstan	26.7
82	Uzbekistan	26.2
83	Albania	25.4
84	Panama	25.3
85	Botswana	24.6
86	Egypt	24.2
87	Brunei	23.5
88	Pakistan	23.3
89	Azerbaijan	23.3
90	Sri Lanka	23.3
91	Cabo Verde	23.3
92	Lebanon	23.2
93	Senegal	22.5
94	Dominican Republic	22.4
95	El Salvador	21.8
96	Namibia	21.8
97	Bolivia	21.4
98	Paraguay	21.4
99	Ghana	21.3
100	Kenya	21.2
101	Cambodia	20.8
102	Trinidad and Tobago	20.7
103	Rwanda	20.6
104	Ecuador	20.5
105	Bangladesh	20.2
106	Kyrgyzstan	20.2
107	Madagascar	19.1
108	Nepal	18.8
109	Nigeria	18.4
110	Laos	18.3
111	Tajikistan	18.3
112	Côte d’Ivoire	18.2
113	Tanzania	17.4
114	Togo	16.9
115	Nicaragua	16.9
116	Honduras	16.7
117	Zimbabwe	16.5
118	Zambia	16.4
119	Algeria	16.1
120	Benin	16.0
121	Uganda	16.0
122	Guatemala	15.8
123	Cameroon	15.3
124	Burkina Faso	14.5
125	Ethiopia	14.3
126	Mozambique	13.6
127	Mauritania	13.5
128	Guinea	13.3
129	Mali	12.9
130	Burundi	12.5
131	Niger	12.4
132	Angola	10.3

Sweden ranked second, rising above the U.S. this year. The country excelled in business sophistication, knowledge-intensive employment, and researchers per capita.

While the U.S. ranked third overall, it saw the highest scores in venture capital received, global corporate research and development (R&D) investors, and total unicorn value. Of the 1,206 global unicorns as of April 2023, the U.S. was home to 54% of the total.

At fifth overall, Singapore ranked the highest in Asia. As both a financial hub and global innovator, Singapore ranked strongly on government effectiveness, venture capital received, and stability for business. It has the highest venture funding per capita in the world.

Brazil (49th) ranked highest in Latin America, while Mauritius (57th) was the top-ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Top 25 Science & Technology Clusters

Here are the top science and technology (S&T) clusters per capita, based on the density of scientific authors and inventors in a geographic location:

2023 Ranking	Cluster	Economy	Top Applicant	Top Scientific Organization
1	Cambridge	UK	ARM	Cambridge University
2	San Jose– San Francisco	U.S.	Google	Stanford University
3	Oxford	UK	Oxford University	Oxford University
4	Eindhoven	Netherlands	Philips Electronics	Eindhoven University of Technology
5	Boston– Cambridge	U.S.	MIT	MIT
6	Daejeon	South Korea	LG Chem	KAIST
7	Ann Arbor	U.S.	University of Michigan	University of Michigan
8	San Diego	U.S.	Qualcomm	University of California San Diego
9	Seattle	U.S.	Microsoft	University of Washington Seattle
10	Munich	Germany	BMW	Technical University of Munich
11	Kanazawa	Japan	Fujitsu	Kanazawa University
12	Raleigh	U.S.	Duke University	Duke University
13	Göteborg	Sweden	LM Ericsson	University of Gothenburg
14	Beijing	China	BOE Technology	Tsinghua University
15	Stockholm	Sweden	LM Ericsson	Karolinska Institutet
16	Helsinki	Finland	Nokia	University of Helsinki
17	Zürich	Switzerland	ETH Zürich	ETH Zürich
18	Tokyo–Yokohama	Japan	Mitsubishi Electric	University of Tokyo
19	Basel	Switzerland, Denmark, France	DSM IP Assets	University of Basel
20	Copenhagen	Denmark	Novo Nordisk	University of Copenhagen
21	Nuremberg–Erlangen	Germany	Siemens	University of Erlangen Nuremberg
22	Stuttgart	Germany	Robert Bosch	Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
23	Minneapolis	U.S.	3M Innovative Properties	University of Minnesota Twin Cities
24	Pittsburgh	U.S.	University of Pittsburgh	University of Pittsburgh
25	Seoul	South Korea	Samsung Electronics	Seoul National University

As the top S&T cluster by intensity, Cambridge produced 37,000 articles per million people. Its top applicant, ARM, is a semiconductor company working closely with Cambridge University. Over 130 billion devices globally have used chips based on ARM’s designs.

The San Jose-San Francisco cluster ranked second, with Google as the top applicant. In 2022, the U.S. granted Google’s parent company Alphabet 2,077 patents.

South Korea’s Daejeon cluster is the top in Asia, led by battery maker LG Chem. In 2022, over 49,000 domestic and overseas patents were registered. In fact, both Honda and GM are partnering with LG Chem to build multi-billion dollar battery factories in Ohio over the next few years.

As we can see, many of the world’s most innovative countries have strong clusters that attract tech firms, researchers, and knowledge-intensive workers due to a host of factors that support disruption and tech advancement.

These tech clusters have a powerful effect on creating innovations that extend across multiple sectors of the economy, and the wider global landscape.

This content was originally published here.

The post Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023 appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

The tenth anniversary edition of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index reveals changing attitudes and persistent trends.

A country’s talent is its powerhouse. Attracting, developing and retaining skilled individuals isn’t just a strategy – it shapes a nation’s success in the global arena.

For ten years, the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) has evaluated the talent performance of countries, guiding decision makers in shaping policies and practices to boost their competitive edge.

In this year’s GTCI rankings comprising 134 countries, Switzerland emerges as the leading nation in cultivating talent, closely followed by Singapore and the United States. Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Australia, Sweden and the United Kingdom complete the rest of the top ten.

GTCI data from the past decade reveals that Switzerland has maintained its top position for ten consecutive years. Singapore has held second place every year except 2020, and the United States, while somewhat less steady, has predominantly stayed within the top four.

The top ten list has remained remarkably stable over the past ten years, primarily dominated by smaller European countries. This year, European nations also secured 17 positions in the top 25. The most notable change in the top 25 is the absence of Japan, replaced by South Korea for the first time.
 

All eyes on emerging economies

Over the past decade, we’ve seen an unwavering link between a country’s wealth and its talent competitiveness, with richer economies continuing to outshine poorer economies. 

While the global talent scene remains uneven and unequal, the progress made by emerging economies provides reason for optimism. Each year, we assess how talent performance changes over extended periods, categorising countries as talent “champions”, “movers”, “limpers” or “laggards”.

Notably, in the past year, China has risen in the rankings from 47th to 40th place, transitioning from a talent mover to a talent champion. Indonesia maintained its status as a talent mover but has made remarkable strides in talent competitiveness over the past decade. Mexico has shifted from being a talent laggard to a talent mover. 

Although Brazil is still among the talent laggards, it has progressed within that quadrant and may well soon shift to becoming a talent mover. All four countries have improved their ability to retain talent.

The proportion of countries from Latin America classified as talent champions has risen from 3 percent in 2020 to 6 percent in 2023. Similarly, Western Asia’s representation among the talent champions has increased from 9 percent to 13 percent over the same period.

Deepening divides and changing attitudes

Year after year, talent inequalities have persisted within societies. Gender inequalities prove remarkably hard to reduce. GTCI data show significant progress in legal and regulatory environments, whereby an increasing number of countries have committed to reducing gender gaps in labour markets. However, such efforts have been slowed (and sometimes reversed) by Covid-19. Altogether, they remain insufficient and need to be accelerated.

In large parts of the world, our analyses show that women continue to face unequal pay and limited career growth. In many poorer and emerging economies, the gender divide is even stronger, as girls struggle to access higher education. While Covid-19 worsened these divides, pushing some to irreversible levels, the post-pandemic recovery may deepen them even further. 

The pandemic years reshaped our global talent landscape in more ways than one. New norms have emerged and are here to stay, including remote and online working. Workers, especially high-skilled individuals, are no longer bound by physical locations and can now choose where they live and work. 

We observed that the correlation between a country’s quality of life and its talent performance was strong before Covid, and we anticipate that it will only grow stronger in the years ahead.

Before the pandemic, we identified a positive trend of global “brain circulation” – a departure from the concepts of brain drain or brain gain. For national economies and enterprises, it had become advantageous to perceive talent as a fluid resource, benefitting from international exposure.

However, the pandemic disrupted the flow of talent across nations. While travel has resumed, persistent uncertainties and geopolitical tensions continue to hinder direct cooperation and limit the exchange of talent between nations.

The 2021 edition of the GTCI predicted that the post-Covid recovery might follow a “K-shaped” trajectory, deepening inequalities among workers based on their skills. The upper branch of the “K” represents workers in strategic sectors, equipped with future-ready skills, while the lower branch spells a challenging path for less skilled or adaptable workers.

Given this scenario, we assumed that the new generation preparing to enter the workforce would prioritise acquiring high-demand skills and target the most dynamic sectors. Surprisingly, our analyses revealed a different trend. We found a growing proportion of younger individuals more focused on pursuing meaningful work, contributing to positive societal or environmental impacts and achieving a healthier work-life balance.

This shift has also given rise to a new generation of workers for whom the traditional concept of “employee loyalty” has rapidly eroded. An increasing number of workers are opting for gigs, “slashing” and short-term contracts, allowing them the flexibility to work independently and pursue diverse opportunities.

How talent competition will change in the next ten years

In the rapidly changing and uncertain decade ahead, the world of work will further transform, driven by evolving expectations from younger generations, new economic models and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

Attracting, growing and retaining talent will gain even more importance as a driver of competitiveness, innovation and geo-political soft power. This will be true for nations, cities and organisations alike.

Consequently, this heightened focus on talent will also fuel fiercer competition. As uncertainties and international tensions accumulate, we should expect more rather than less talent wars. Domestic labour market challenges and rising nationalism will further intensify these battles, in particular around immigration policies.

Cities and regions will stand as pioneers in this evolving scenario. Through our Global City Talent Competitiveness Index, we’ve witnessed the rise of new talent hubs in cities and how core issues such as sustainability, innovation and talent have largely shifted from national to local governments. Looking ahead, we anticipate that cities and regions will pioneer new talent and innovation strategies.

Over the next ten years, skills and education will remain vital tools to empower workers to make meaningful contributions to their economies and societies. It is our responsibility to build an inclusive global workforce, ensuring equal opportunities for all to contribute towards creating a fairer and more sustainable world.

While these are only predictions, in the last ten years, the GTCI has often anticipated patterns before they unfolded. Stay tuned to witness how these emerging trends might reshape the world of work as we know it.

This content was originally published here.

The post The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries 2023 appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Over the past few decades, the food and agriculture sector has consistently faced challenges in meeting the world’s food needs. Throughout the late 20th century, population growth significantly increased global demand for nutrition, and as the 21st century has progressed, severe weather events as a result of climate change have complicated food production around the world.

Despite these challenges, participants in the food value chain—including farmers, agribusinesses, processors, and distributors—have made great strides in increasing overall per capita caloric availability. However, they have not yet overcome environmental challenges associated with food and agriculture. In fact, in 2019 the world’s agri-food systems accounted for about 30 percent of human-caused global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, making them a critical focus for meeting increasingly bold climate targets.¹“New FAO analysis reveals carbon footprint of agri-food supply chain,” UN News, November 8, 2021.

One opportunity to meet climate targets while adding new revenue in agriculture is to remove carbon through regenerative agricultural practices such as planting cover crops. Such carbon removals could sequester 0.5 to 1.2 metric gigatons (Gt) of CO₂ out of the 6.0 to 10.0 GtCO₂ of annual sequestration needed by 2050.²Deborah A. Bossio et al., “Global sequestration potential of increased organic carbon in cropland soils,” Scientific Reports, 2017, Volume 7; The case for negative emissions: A call for immediate action, Coalition for Negative Emissions, June 2021. They can also help agriculture play a critical role in addressing other sustainability crises, such as biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution, and freshwater consumption.³“Nature in the balance: What companies can do to restore natural capital,” McKinsey, December 5, 2022.

That said, public incentives are forcing many companies to rethink their business models and pursue innovation. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States addresses climate mitigation and agriculture, consumer willingness to pay green premiums is increasing, and voluntary carbon markets have been established in the state of California, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.

About the survey

In mid to late 2022, we surveyed 162 industry professionals: 87 representing food, agriculture, and agtech, and 75 from investment groups, incubators, and other financial organizations. Respondents spanned the globe, coming from North and South America; Asia–Pacific; and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. We asked these professionals about how they expect agriculture to evolve in the coming years and which of the five shifts identified will be the most significant, as well as their reactions to 11 business concepts and how each can disrupt incumbents’ operations today.

Moving forward, significant shifts in global food systems are necessary to meet the world’s demand for food, fuel, and fiber without harming the planet—and innovation at scale is key. With this in mind, we surveyed some of the sector’s leading thinkers, including executives of incumbent companies, venture capital (VC) firms, and start-ups, to get their thoughts on five recent shifts (see sidebar “About the survey”). The results helped us identify 11 food and agriculture business concepts that are emerging to support the future of farming and to meet the sector’s sustainability challenges for a green and resilient future.

Five shifts to meet society’s goals for 21st-century food and agriculture

As the food and agriculture sector approaches the future, regulatory environments and private-sector commitments could be major drivers of change. On the regulatory side are ambitious policy agendas; for example, the European Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy, part of the European Green Deal, aims to make food systems “fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly” by promoting organic farming and pushing for a 50 percent reduction in synthetic inputs.⁴“Farm to Fork strategy,” Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, European Commission, accessed April 17, 2023. Meanwhile, more than 1,500 corporations have made emissions-reduction commitments through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), including many companies in the food and agriculture sector.⁵For more, see “Science Based Targets” (website), accessed April 17, 2023. And many of these companies have gone even further to focus on broader environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, including regenerative farming, reduced waste, water quality, and biodiversity.

Based on these commitments, five shifts are needed to support the goals of 21st-century food and agriculture: building land value beyond crops, fueling the biorevolution, eating sustainably, ESG transparency and accountability, and taking out the waste. Of the five key shifts, survey respondents said three present particular challenges for incumbent agribusinesses.

Change is coming fast. In fact, 50 percent of respondents expect these shifts to have a meaningful impact on the industry within the next two years, while approximately 20 percent believe these shifts already have impact today. Investors expect shifts to occur faster than incumbents do. Overall, respondents believe the greatest material impact will come from eating sustainably and ESG transparency and accountability (both at 58 percent of respondents), followed by fueling the biorevolution (55 percent), taking out the waste (53 percent), and building land value beyond crops (47 percent).

Eleven 21st-century food and agriculture business concepts

Despite the challenges these shifts present, leading and new agribusinesses will have meaningful opportunities to pursue business-building opportunities. In our discussions with survey respondents, we identified 11 business concepts that will be key to feeding the world sustainably.

Building land value beyond crops

Land is a limited resource that can provide direct benefits from production as well as indirect benefits from passive use, such as increased biodiversity and naturally occurring carbon sinks in the form of forests and oceans. Landowners, farmers, input providers, and other value chain participants can consider comprehensive aspects of land valuation, including those with benefits that may take more time to materialize.

Land preservation and conservation. The importance of cropland is expanding beyond conventional crop production in recognition of the vital role that climate-smart agriculture can play in supporting both stakeholders and decarbonization. Practices that sequester carbon and reduce biodiversity loss can create benefits such as soil preservation for farmers and can also create new revenue streams, such as carbon credits, for landowners, farmers, and investors.

New businesses can assess land’s full economic value to include natural and societal benefits such as fresh water, flood control, and forest products so stakeholders can capture ecosystem benefits and carbon-credit revenue streams.

To decrease biodiversity loss and nutrient pollution, new businesses can develop techniques to reduce the cost of agroforestry deployment. According to McKinsey estimates, this could reduce costs by approximately 10 percent to $180 per hectare by 2050, depending on the practices used.⁶“Nature in the balance: What companies can do to restore natural capital,” McKinsey, December 5, 2022.

How incumbents can help smaller players implement sustainable practices

An incumbent in the agri-food sector has set out to provide sustainable farming as a service. It leverages its advantages as an incumbent to help smaller farmers overcome challenges of scale, such as the following:

Seasonality slows time to scale. Agriculture is a uniquely slow sector for commercial innovation because farmers tend to operate on a seasonal basis. This can create lags in revenue that are difficult for new ventures to endure and that encourage incumbents to focus on the core business instead of on reinvention.

Behavior change requires an outsize share of fragmented attention. Farmers often have significant capital tied up in their operations as well as debt on their land and equipment. Naturally, there is a high bar to change practices or try new technologies that could risk cash flow and lead to default. At the same time, farming is a complicated business, and most farmers are making many simultaneous decisions around equipment, crop mix and rotation, inputs (such as type, supplier, application rate, and application timing), crop marketing, compliance reporting, labor, and more.

Ability to confer incumbent advantages without smothering growth. Incumbents have an unfair advantage, with access to talent, capital, and farmers that start-ups and other new entrants do not have. However, it is critical to give the new business space to grow to keep it from being smothered by the existing processes or biases of the parent organization.

Regenerative agronomy services. Regenerative agronomy supports the deployment of regenerative agriculture, which can help sequester carbon, reduce biodiversity loss, reduce freshwater use, and decrease nutrient pollution. Despite the recent launch of numerous new ventures to support decarbonization on the farm, businesses have not yet achieved significant scale or fully succeeded in supporting farmers in the transition to regenerative agriculture. However, capital is ready to be deployed: investors expect to increase fund allocation of new farming methods by 15 percent in their next rounds of funding, indicating that they recognize the importance of regenerative agriculture. This area urgently needs to be scaled so that farmers have the right incentives and do not get left behind (see sidebar “How incumbents can help smaller players implement sustainable practices”).

New businesses can develop new technologies and achieve data transparency sufficient to support incumbent and investor ESG goals. These can both help farmers gain value from the sustainability transformation via consumer premiums, government incentives, and voluntary carbon markets.

Smallholder support services. Service models can support smallholder farmers in making the transition from low-productivity, extensive agriculture to high-productivity, intensive, climate-smart agriculture. More than three-quarters of farmers around the world live on less than two hectares—meaning millions of farmers do not produce enough to earn a sufficient income or use their land effectively.⁷“Small family farmers produce a third of the world’s food,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, April 23, 2021. For example, the yields of US corn farmers are 11 times those in sub-Saharan Africa, three to four times those in India, and nearly twice those in China, which is the second-largest producer in the world.⁸Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser, “Crop yields,” Our World In Data, 2022. Smallholders are exposed to climate risks such as drought, extreme heat, and flooding—for example, nearly 80 percent of all smallholders in Ethiopia, India, and Mexico could be affected by at least one climate hazard by 2050.⁹Chania Frost, Kartik Jayaram, and Gillian Pais, “What climate-smart agriculture means for smallholder farmers,” McKinsey, February 28, 2023. With an estimated one-third of the world’s food and 32 percent of agriculture GHG emissions coming from smallholder farms, solving the smallholder challenge will be imperative for both food security and climate needs. Solving this challenge could increase land productivity, reduce conversion rates of natural ecosystems to farmland to produce carbon sequestration and biodiversity benefits, and ensure climate-smart agriculture practices.

To reduce climate-induced volatility, new businesses can invest in climate-adapted technologies, such as pest-resistant seeds, fertilizer coatings, and biostimulants, as well as water-efficient agriculture techniques, such as optimized and water-efficient seeds.

Fueling the biorevolution

Production systems have become increasingly efficient over time, but there is still significant headroom to increase efficiency in the biofuel space as demand accelerates. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects US biofuel consumption in 2030 to triple compared with 2019 levels.¹⁰“Biofuel production in 2019 compared to consumption in 2030 under the Sustainable Development Scenario,” IEA, updated October 26, 2022. Thus, food and agriculture players can accelerate improvements to meet climate targets and emerging demands.

Considerations for start-ups raising capital

Raising capital has been one of the most significant challenges for the CEO of a start-up cleantech player converting manure to biogas and biofertilizer. With this in mind, he shared several lessons from the company’s journey.

Avoid complexity. The simpler the business model and the pitch, the better. Decision makers will have different levels of familiarity with specific business models, so make it easy for them to understand the business and its unique value proposition.

When raising capital, don’t just look for the right investment bank, look for the right team. Capital-raising teams should have experience with similar businesses—those with similar technology, end markets, and maturity. A team with the right experience can save precious time in raising capital by knowing where to go first. For example, American private equity funds may prefer different risk profiles than European private equity funds or smaller environmental, social, and governance funds.

Don’t overcommit. Avoid getting too excited about one potential investor such that you slow down discussions with others. It’s important to have many irons in the fire because hiccups on the path to “yes” are common.

Partnering. At first, partnerships can appear to dilute the value a company expects to capture. However, they can be an important way to de-risk and reduce the complexity of a business. Although it’s still important to understand potential trade-offs, partnerships also signal to potential investors that others have bought into a business.

Manure to fuel and fertilizer. By 2030, the world is expected to produce nearly five billion tons of manure each year.¹¹David M. Berendes et al., “Estimation of global recoverable human and animal faecal biomass,” Nature Sustainability, November 2018, Volume 1. On the one hand, this volume is a potential environmental problem that could affect air and water quality due to nitrous oxide and methane emissions. On the other hand, manure could potentially meet crop fertility needs, improve soil quality, and deliver significant amounts of energy—enough to contribute 5.5 percent of national energy production by 2050.¹²Allison Crimmins, “The power of manure,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) News, October 4, 2011. However, the challenge of producing, aggregating, and marketing this volume of organic fertilizer is not trivial (see sidebar “Considerations for start-ups raising capital”). Many farms lack the necessary scale for the economics of current approaches to be feasible. For example, only 10 percent of the approximately 60,000 dairy farms in France are of sufficient scale—around 100 cows—for small anaerobic digesters to make economic sense.¹³For more, see “French dairy farms,” Centre National Interprofessionnel de l’Economie Laitière (CNIEL), accessed April 17, 2023.

New businesses can help large and small farms deploy manure management techniques such as anaerobic digestion and manure sequestration to reduce nutrient pollution. They can also invest in innovative approaches to convert manure into desirable end products such as biogas and biofertilizer.

Biorefining. Some sectors are particularly difficult to abate, such as the transportation sector, especially aviation. A number of promising technologies are on the horizon, such as hydrogen-powered flight, but most are a decade or more away from scaling. Meeting our growing needs for fuel will likely require upgrading existing biofuel technologies and scaling nascent technology approaches such as conversion of crop and forest residues to sustainable fuels through advanced pyrolysis.¹⁴For more on the potential benefits of pyrolysis, see Zhou Peng, Theo Jan Simons, Jeremy Wallach, and Adam Youngman, “Advanced recycling: Opportunities for growth,” McKinsey, May 16, 2022. In turn, this will require careful management to ensure feedstocks are truly sustainably sourced and do not reduce carbon stocks or damage biodiversity. However, this space could provide excellent opportunities for new green businesses that have the dual mission of creating both value and social impact.

Eating sustainably

Efficiently producing food will not be enough. At the global level, diets will need to shift toward more sustainable sources of energy and protein. That said, some of these shifts are already happening today. For example, the alternative-protein revolution is currently in the early phase as companies develop and scale plant-based proteins.¹⁵For more insights on alternative proteins, see “Alternative proteins,” McKinsey, accessed April 17, 2023. These can be complemented by cultivated meats, plant-based meats, and other innovations to help meet consumer demand for tasty, healthy foods at lower carbon- and land-intensity per calorie—up to 20 times less than for beef.¹⁶Craig Hanson et al., “How to sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050, in 21 charts,” World Resources Institute, December 5, 2018.

Plant-based protein. Alternative proteins and other plant-based foods have been a strong growth area, with numerous start-ups launching products targeting the sweet spot of tasty, trendy, and more sustainably produced. However, these supply chains remain subscale, resulting in higher costs than those of incumbent foods and ingredients. In turn, these supply constraints and high costs limit the appetite of food companies to launch new products.

To achieve economies of scale, new businesses can reduce costs and scale plant-based supply chains. They can also produce crops with low emissions per unit of protein, low-emissions transportation options, and low-emissions processing.

Lab-grown meat. Not all consumers will make the shift to plant-based proteins.¹⁷For more, see Tom Brennan, Joshua Katz, Yossi Quint, and Boyd Spencer, “Cultivated meat: Out of the lab, into the frying pan,” McKinsey, June 16, 2021. Thus, new businesses will need to be geared toward alternative proteins, such as lab-grown (cultured) meat alternatives. The lab-grown meat space could represent more than $25 billion in value by 2030.¹⁸For more, see Tom Brennan, Joshua Katz, Yossi Quint, and Boyd Spencer, “Cultivated meat: Out of the lab, into the frying pan,” McKinsey, June 16, 2021. However, consumers have strong preferences on what meat should look, feel, and taste like, which creates challenges for lab-grown-meat providers in meeting consumer expectations.

To optimize consumer adoption, new businesses can tailor lab-grown meat to consumer taste preferences.

Taking out the waste

As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets managed.” Nearly 30 percent of the food produced today is wasted—enough to feed two billion people, more than double the undernourished population across the globe.¹⁹“5 facts about food waste and hunger,” World Food Programme, June 2, 2020. Given this scale, reducing waste will be a critical component of the future food system. Solutions will likely involve preserving crops at the farm level and reducing food waste at the processing, retail, and consumer levels, all of which can lead to capturing more value from food production.

Optimizing crop storage. Unavailability of cold storage drives significant food waste. Up to 50 and 45 percent of postharvest output in India and Nigeria spoils because of a lack of cold storage, respectively.²⁰Angela Wipperman, “Why sustainable food systems need cold storage innovations,” Global Center on Adaptation, December 16, 2020; Benson Kibiti and Heinz Strubenhoff, “How off-grid cold storage systems can help farmers reduce post-harvest losses,” Brookings Institution, October 16, 2019. Building solar-powered cold-store solutions can help increase microstorage or aggregation solutions for smallholder farms, reducing postharvest losses for remote farmers without connection to the grid.²¹For more on reducing postharvest losses, see “How to reduce postharvest crop losses in the agricultural supply chain,” McKinsey, November 18, 2021. A new method called hyperbaric storage, which uses pressure control to slow microbial development at different temperatures, could serve as an alternative to cold storage.

To reduce crop spoilage, new businesses can deploy cold-storage solutions with reliable renewable power sources independent of the grid. They can also continue researching novel storage methods.

Downstream food waste reduction. Even if food is not consumed by humans, it can still play important roles such as feeding animals. It can also be converted into energy or other products through techniques such as waste-to-energy, renewable natural gas (RNG), conversion to biochar for soil, and compost. For example, codigestion, anaerobic digestion, and composting can mitigate 0.5 to 0.6 tons of CO₂ equivalent per ton of food waste while reducing waste disposal fees.²²Calculated using the EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM). For more, see “Waste Reduction Model (WARM),” US Environmental Protection Agency, updated October 7, 2022. Meanwhile, incumbent waste players typically use anaerobic digestion to convert food waste into a slurry to produce biogas, RNG, or compost.

New businesses can use anaerobic digestion to create co-products and continue investing in alternative waste conversion methods such as biochar.

Transparency and accountability for climate risk

Farm-level insights. Climate change is changing the risk profile of farms. There is a need for good quantification of risk factors to support land acquisition, farm finance, and other decisions. This would ideally allow more preferential access to capital for farmers with less systematic risk who have taken measures to build climate resilience (such as through regenerative agriculture practices). One example is the EPA’s monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) plan, which provides an approved method for plant owners and operators to report the amount of CO₂ that is sequestered.²³For more, see “Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide: Subpart RR,” US Environmental Protection Agency, November 2011.

New businesses can provide digital solutions for field-level crop insights throughout the growing season to optimize irrigation and nutrient application—optimizing yield while minimizing water and fertilizer use. They can also include climate practices and risk in crop insurance to provide incentives for climate-smart practice adoption through lower risk premiums.

Tracking outcomes across the value chain. Indirect land use change and soil carbon sequestration have only recently been included in key emissions tracking metrics. For example, SBTi’s Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) Guidance was announced in fall 2022 for companies in land-intensive sectors to set near-term science based targets. New and more-accurate methodologies for end-to-end supply chain tracking of emissions and other important sustainability metrics, such as carbon accounting, can support a net-zero pathway and help farmers and food manufacturers build consumer trust in new green products and brands.

New businesses can offer cradle-to-grave carbon accounting and tracking software to build consumer confidence in low-carbon agricultural products.

What can today’s agribusinesses do to get started?

While regulation will undoubtedly play a major role in supporting the transition, the largest force for scaling a sustainable transformation in food and agriculture is arguably private-sector innovation, especially business model innovation. We are seeing capital being deployed at scale by incumbents and by new ventures. On the venture side, capital deployment has been remarkable, with 20 times more capital invested in agtech ventures in 2021 than in 2012.²⁴Anjan Asthana, Tom Brennan, Dave Eickholt, and John Levene, “How agtech start-ups can survive a capital drought,” McKinsey, November 10, 2022. Investors are changing how they plan to allocate capital in their next funds, with new technologies such as new farming methods and production foodtech seeing growth at the cost of less novel areas such as traditional production and agricultural inputs. Overall, investors are more excited about concepts that are more mature, while incumbents prefer close-to-farm initiatives (Exhibit 3).

Agribusiness leaders can respond to these shifts by making several adjustments in how they think and operate²⁵For more on how businesses can grow successfully, see Chris Bradley, Rebecca Doherty, Nicholas Northcote, and Tido Röder, “The ten rules of growth,” McKinsey, August 12, 2022.:

Although the future evolution of food needs remains uncertain, it’s exceedingly clear that urgent action is needed to respond to climate change and ensure that healthy sources of nutrition are available globally. There is significant pressure to get this right—and quickly. Businesses will need to be scaled to allow both incumbents and new entrants to adapt, and many of the concepts they will bring to the table are expected to achieve scale over the next three to five years. Decisions made today will have lasting implications, but a healthy understanding of the trends, players, and technologies involved can help plant the seeds for increasingly sustainable quantities of affordable and nutritious food.

This content was originally published here.

The post Building food and agriculture businesses for a green future appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

China stands as a formidable player in the global trade arena, wielding its influence as the world’s largest goods exporter.

With a complex network of trade partnerships spanning more than 200 countries, regions, and territories, the world’s second-largest economy has significant economic relationships with both allies and adversaries.

By using 2022 trade data from China’s General Administration of Customs, this visualization from Truman Du breaks down the nation’s top trading partners through imports and exports by destination.

China’s Imports and Exports by Country in 2022

Over the course of 2022, China saw exports totaling $3.57 trillion and imports totaling $2.71 trillion, giving it a massive trade surplus of $857 billion.

 Note: For products manufactured in two or more countries, China records the place where the last substantial working or processing occurred as the place of origin, including China itself.

Country	Imports (2022 USD)	Exports (2022 USD)	Balance (2022 USD)
United States	$177.7B	$578.8B	+$401.1B
Hong Kong	$7.8B	$295.2B	+$287.4B
Netherlands	$12.5B	$117.4B	+$104.9B
India	$17.5B	$117.7B	+$100.3B
Mexico	$17.4B	$77.3B	+$59.8B
United Kingdom	$21.8B	$81.0B	+$59.2B
Vietnam	$88.0B	$144.4B	+$56.4B
Singapore	$33.9B	$80.0B	+$46.1B
Philippines	$23.0B	$63.9B	+$40.9B
Poland	$5.1B	$38.0B	+$32.9B
Spain	$9.8B	$41.6B	+$31.9B
Türkiye	$4.5B	$33.9B	+$29.4B
Belgium	$8.7B	$35.5B	+$26.7B
Bangladesh	$1.0B	$26.7B	+$25.7B
Italy	$27.0B	$50.5B	+$23.6B
Thailand	$56.5B	$77.7B	+$21.1B
Nigeria	$1.6B	$22.1B	+$20.5B
Pakistan	$3.4B	$22.9B	+$19.5B
Egypt	$1.0B	$17.1B	+$16.0B
Kyrgyzstan	$0.1B	$15.3B	+$15.3B
Czechia	$5.4B	$18.2B	+$12.8B
Cambodia	$1.8B	$14.0B	+$12.2B
Greece	$0.8B	$12.9B	+$12.1B
Panama	$1.2B	$12.6B	+$11.4B
Canada	$42.3B	$53.4B	+$11.1B
France	$35.6B	$45.5B	+$9.9B
Colombia	$7.0B	$15.5B	+$8.5B
United Arab Emirates	$45.4B	$53.5B	+$8.1B
Kenya	$0.3B	$8.2B	+$7.9B
Liberia	$0.0B	$7.5B	+$7.5B
Israel	$9.0B	$16.4B	+$7.4B
Tanzania	$0.5B	$7.7B	+$7.1B
Slovenia	$0.6B	$6.8B	+$6.3B
Ghana	$2.3B	$7.8B	+$5.5B
Hungary	$5.0B	$10.5B	+$5.4B
Uzbekistan	$2.3B	$7.4B	+$5.1B
Algeria	$1.1B	$6.2B	+$5.1B
Jordan	$0.7B	$5.7B	+$4.9B
Morocco	$0.9B	$5.7B	+$4.8B
Germany	$111.4B	$115.9B	+$4.5B
Denmark	$5.7B	$10.2B	+$4.4B
Romania	$3.1B	$7.4B	+$4.3B
Argentina	$8.6B	$12.7B	+$4.1B
Macao	$0.1B	$4.2B	+$4.1B
Guatemala	$0.6B	$4.3B	+$3.8B
Dominican Republic	$0.5B	$4.3B	+$3.7B
Senegal	$0.3B	$4.0B	+$3.7B
Marshall Islands	$0.0B	$3.5B	+$3.5B
Sri Lanka	$0.5B	$3.7B	+$3.2B
Djibouti	$0.1B	$3.2B	+$3.1B
Iran	$6.4B	$9.4B	+$3.0B
Togo	$0.2B	$3.1B	+$2.9B
Portugal	$3.0B	$6.0B	+$2.9B
Cote d’Ivoire	$1.0B	$3.5B	+$2.5B
Cameroon	$0.7B	$3.1B	+$2.5B
Lebanon	$0.1B	$2.5B	+$2.4B
Sweden	$9.1B	$11.4B	+$2.2B
Venezuela	$0.8B	$3.0B	+$2.1B
Yemen	$0.6B	$2.8B	+$2.1B
Croatia	$0.2B	$2.3B	+$2.1B
Mozambique	$1.3B	$3.2B	+$1.9B
Myanmar	$11.5B	$13.4B	+$1.9B
Tajikistan	$0.4B	$2.2B	+$1.8B
Paraguay	$0.1B	$1.9B	+$1.8B
Ethiopia	$0.5B	$2.2B	+$1.8B
Lithuania	$0.1B	$1.8B	+$1.7B
Nepal	$0.0B	$1.6B	+$1.6B
Tunisia	$0.3B	$1.9B	+$1.6B
Bulgaria	$1.3B	$2.8B	+$1.6B
Honduras	$0.0B	$1.6B	+$1.5B
Bahrain	$0.3B	$1.8B	+$1.5B
Kazakhstan	$14.8B	$16.3B	+$1.5B
Belarus	$1.8B	$3.2B	+$1.4B
Benin	$0.3B	$1.7B	+$1.4B
El Salvador	$0.2B	$1.7B	+$1.4B
Malta	$0.6B	$2.0B	+$1.4B
Sudan	$0.9B	$2.0B	+$1.1B
Cyprus	$0.0B	$1.2B	+$1.1B
Georgia	$0.1B	$1.2B	+$1.1B
Somalia	$0.0B	$1.0B	+$1.0B
Azerbaijan	$0.1B	$1.1B	+$1.0B
Jamaica	$0.0B	$1.0B	+$1.0B
Uganda	$0.1B	$1.1B	+$1.0B
Mauritius	$0.0B	$1.0B	+$0.9B
Serbia	$1.4B	$2.2B	+$0.8B
Madagascar	$0.6B	$1.4B	+$0.8B
Korea, DPR	$0.1B	$0.8B	+$0.7B
Nicaragua	$0.0B	$0.7B	+$0.7B
Estonia	$0.3B	$0.9B	+$0.7B
Latvia	$0.4B	$1.0B	+$0.6B
Haiti	$0.0B	$0.6B	+$0.6B
Albania	$0.2B	$0.7B	+$0.5B
Afghanistan	$0.0B	$0.6B	+$0.5B
Mali	$0.1B	$0.6B	+$0.5B
Fiji	$0.0B	$0.5B	+$0.5B
Maldives	$0.0B	$0.4B	+$0.4B
Syria	$0.0B	$0.4B	+$0.4B
Gambia	$0.0B	$0.4B	+$0.4B
Burkina Faso	$0.1B	$0.5B	+$0.4B
Bahamas	$0.0B	$0.4B	+$0.4B
Niger	$0.3B	$0.7B	+$0.4B
Costa Rica	$2.0B	$2.4B	+$0.4B
Rwanda	$0.1B	$0.4B	+$0.3B
Belize	$0.0B	$0.3B	+$0.3B
Suriname	$0.0B	$0.3B	+$0.3B
Malawi	$0.0B	$0.3B	+$0.3B
Réunion	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.2B
Luxembourg	$0.3B	$0.5B	+$0.2B
Bolivia	$0.9B	$1.1B	+$0.2B
Montenegro	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.2B
Bhutan	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.2B
Palestine	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.2B
French Polynesia	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.1B
Timor-Leste	$0.1B	$0.3B	+$0.1B
Barbados	$0.0B	$0.2B	+$0.1B
Moldova	$0.1B	$0.2B	+$0.1B
Samoa	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Iceland	$0.2B	$0.3B	+$0.1B
British Virgin Islands	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Burundi	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Other Oceanian Territories	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Antigua and Barbuda	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Seychelles	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Cabo Verde	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Vanuatu	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Bermuda	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Eswatini	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Guadeloupe	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Comoros	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Aruba	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Bosnia and Herzegovina	$0.1B	$0.2B	+$0.1B
Curaçao	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Mayotte	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Guinea-Bissau	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Tonga	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
North Macedonia	$0.2B	$0.2B	+$0.1B
Cayman Islands	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Other Latin American Territories	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Palau	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.1B
Martinique	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Kiribati	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
French Guiana	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Lesotho	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.0B
Saint Lucia	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Dominica	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Tuvalu	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Federated States of Micronesia	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Central African Republic	$0.0B	$0.1B	+$0.0B
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Grenada	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Andorra	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Gibraltar	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Sao Tome and Principe	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Other European Territories	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Saint Kitts and Nevis	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Nauru	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Cook Islands	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Turks and Caicos Islands	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Saint Martin	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Other North American Territories	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
San Marino	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Other African Territories	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Canary Islands	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Wallis and Futuna	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Norfolk Island	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Western Sahara	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Other Asian Territories	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Montserrat	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Ceuta	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Holy See	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Melilla	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Bonaire	$0.0B	$0.0B	+$0.0B
Monaco	$0.0B	$0.0B	-$0.0B
Cuba	$0.5B	$0.4B	-$0.0B
Namibia	$0.6B	$0.6B	-$0.0B
South Sudan	$0.2B	$0.2B	-$-0.1B
Solomon Islands	$0.3B	$0.2B	-$-0.1B
Faroe Islands	$0.1B	$0.0B	-$-0.1B
Liechtenstein	$0.2B	$0.1B	-$-0.1B
Botswana	$0.4B	$0.2B	-$-0.2B
Zimbabwe	$1.3B	$1.1B	-$-0.2B
Sierra Leone	$0.8B	$0.6B	-$-0.2B
Trinidad and Tobago	$0.8B	$0.5B	-$-0.2B
Mauritania	$1.2B	$0.9B	-$-0.2B
Armenia	$0.8B	$0.5B	-$-0.3B
Eritrea	$0.5B	$0.1B	-$-0.3B
Puerto Rico	$1.3B	$1.0B	-$-0.3B
Greenland	$0.4B	$0.0B	-$-0.4B
Ecuador	$6.8B	$6.3B	-$-0.6B
Libya	$2.9B	$2.4B	-$-0.6B
Finland	$5.3B	$4.5B	-$-0.7B
Guyana	$1.3B	$0.6B	-$-0.7B
Chad	$1.1B	$0.3B	-$-0.8B
Ukraine	$4.3B	$3.3B	-$-1.1B
Laos	$3.4B	$2.3B	-$-1.1B
Equatorial Guinea	$1.5B	$0.2B	-$-1.3B
Unknown Countries (Territories)	$1.4B	$0.0B	-$-1.4B
Brunei	$2.2B	$0.8B	-$-1.4B
Uruguay	$4.5B	$3.0B	-$-1.5B
New Caledonia	$1.9B	$0.2B	-$-1.7B
Guinea	$4.5B	$2.3B	-$-2.3B
Papua New Guinea	$3.8B	$1.4B	-$-2.4B
Norway	$8.0B	$5.2B	-$-2.8B
Austria	$8.2B	$5.1B	-$-3.1B
Slovakia	$7.7B	$4.4B	-$-3.3B
Gabon	$3.9B	$0.6B	-$-3.4B
Congo	$5.6B	$1.0B	-$-4.6B
Zambia	$5.7B	$1.0B	-$-4.8B
Mongolia	$9.3B	$2.9B	-$-6.5B
New Zealand	$16.0B	$9.1B	-$-6.8B
Indonesia	$77.9B	$70.9B	-$-7.0B
South Africa	$32.4B	$24.0B	-$-8.4B
Turkmenistan	$10.3B	$0.9B	-$-9.5B
Peru	$24.1B	$13.4B	-$-10.7B
Democratic Republic of Congo	$16.6B	$5.1B	-$-11.5B
Japan	$184.4B	$172.5B	-$-11.9B
Ireland	$18.1B	$5.7B	-$-12.4B
Malaysia	$109.9B	$92.2B	-$-17.7B
Qatar	$22.6B	$3.9B	-$-18.6B
Angola	$23.2B	$4.0B	-$-19.2B
Kuwait	$26.5B	$4.9B	-$-21.6B
Chile	$44.4B	$22.4B	-$-22.0B
Iraq	$39.4B	$13.8B	-$-25.6B
Oman	$36.2B	$4.2B	-$-32.1B
Republic of Korea	$199.1B	$161.3B	-$-37.8B
Russia	$114.4B	$75.6B	-$-38.7B
Saudi Arabia	$78.1B	$37.7B	-$-40.4B
Switzerland	$49.7B	$7.6B	-$-42.1B
Brazil	$109.4B	$61.8B	-$-47.6B
Australia	$142.1B	$78.5B	-$-63.6B
China	$121.9B	N/A	-$-121.9B
Taiwan	$237.2B	$81.5B	-$-155.8B

China had individual trade surpluses with the overwhelming majority of its trade partners: 174 of the 234 countries and territories listed.

These trade surpluses are especially visible in China’s trade relationships with many of the world’s largest economies, including the U.S. and India, with $401.1 billion and $100.3 billion surpluses respectively.

Meanwhile, a good sum of the country’s trade deficits are with major Asian economies. Its largest deficit is with Taiwan, primarily coming from integrated circuit imports. China also has deficits with Japan (-$11.9 billion) and South Korea (-$37.8 billion), the region’s second and fourth-largest economies respectively, largely due to electronics and machinery imports.

The country’s other trade deficits stem from fulfilling strategic needs. For example, China has deficits with oil-producing countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia. It also has a trade deficit with Australia, a key supplier of raw goods such as iron, gold, lithium, and liquefied petroleum gas.

China’s Evolving Trade Partner Relationships

China’s trade relationships extend far beyond just economic considerations; they reflect historical, geopolitical, and strategic factors as well.

Taiwan’s major role in the semiconductor market, for example, makes it both a valuable trade partner and a contentious rival. China considers Taiwan a part of its territory, while Taiwan operates as a separate, self-governed entity.

Likewise, China’s increasing investments in infrastructure across parts of Asia and Africa are starting to reflect growing trade balances with developing countries set to become major trade partners in the future.

As the Chinese economy evolves (and potentially weakens), its relationships with both allies and potential enemies may only grow more complex.

This content was originally published here.

The post Visualizing All of China’s Trade Partners appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

On the surface, international business expansion seems easier than ever. Today, any company can reach multiple markets in a matter of seconds: Publish a blog post, launch a mobile app, buy digital ads, and target customers in as many countries as you wish. The rise of online global marketplaces has made it even easier for companies to launch into multiple countries simultaneously, often from their earliest days. This has given rise to a wave of “global native” companies that have an international presence from day one.

When Ian Harkin founded Lottie, a toy company based in Donegal, Ireland that manufactures Barbie doll alternatives with a child’s dimensions instead of an adult’s, he began with international markets in mind from the very start. “In the toy industry, with very high up-front development costs, it’s difficult to justify the expense to launch in just one country,” he explains. Harkin, the company’s CEO, integrated their storefront into Amazon, and immediately reached customers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and Poland. Nearly 100% of the company’s revenue today comes from outside of Ireland. Harkin points out, “For us, going global early helped our product and brand reach more potential customers, much faster, than if we would have expanded one country at a time.”

This growing phenomenon of going global as early as possible in the life of a business isn’t only happening with physical products that can launch via global platforms like Amazon or Etsy. Partners at Andreessen Horowitz have written about the new wave of “default global” companies, which radically compress the timeframe it takes to go global. They contrast these with “default local” firms, which often take five years before operating in just a few foreign markets. The default global companies are often in double the number of markets as default local companies are by year three. In addition, research from Stripe shows that 89% of successful tech companies had expanded internationally prior to achieving “unicorn” status, a valuation of $1 billion or higher.

But building a global company is also more nuanced and complex than ever before. In the past, companies could limit expansion in a more controlled fashion to just one market at a time. In the digital age, global growth is far more continuous and incremental in nature. But with this new approach comes risk: If your customers in one market receive less value than those in another, they perceive your offering differently. This is not only unfair to them, but it can also hurt your business in the long run.

For this reason, even if you’re already having success as a global company, it’s time to raise the bar. To sustain your success for the long term, you’ll need to build not just a company that has customers or revenue streams from many different countries, but one that operates as a globally equitable organization (GEO for shorthand).

The Rise of the Globally Equitable Organization

When I ran international expansion efforts for HubSpot, a large public tech company, over the space of nearly eight years, I noticed this pronounced shift toward continuous expansion happening before my eyes. But I also observed another important trend at play in the broader market. In the past, companies that sought to expand internationally measured their success strictly using qualitative measures, usually in the form of revenue or customer count from new markets.

Today, with global becoming the new default, the goal is no longer as simple as just increasing revenue share from between different parts of the world. Instead, the new measure is more customer-oriented in nature. Companies have realized that it’s not enough to initially acquire new customers in other geographies — retaining them is critical, as this ensures that revenue can be sustained. The best global companies ask themselves: How successful can our local customers be with our business in each market, without geography getting in the way?

Take Teamwork, a project management software company headquartered in Cork, Ireland. “You can sell software from anywhere in the world from the get-go. There are no boundaries,” explains Peter Coppinger, Teamwork CEO and co-founder. “One of the biggest lessons we learned with Teamwork’s international expansion is that once you reach a certain scale, you need to get more deliberate about targeting the regions with the most potential.”

As the company deepened its presence in specific markets, Coppinger and team found that they needed to ramp up sales and customer talent in order to support customers in new time zones. “There is no substitute for having staff in the same time zone speaking the same language as your target customer,” he points out. When Teamwork recognized some customers were feeling this pain, they were proactive about creating a more equitable experience for all customers. Today, the company has 20,000 customers in 170 countries, and a global workforce of 350 employees in 15 countries.

Make Local Customer Experiences Equitable, Not Identical

In the digital age, it’s easy to go global without adapting the customer experience. But if companies fail to make sufficient adaptations, they miss the chance to build true connections of value with their customers.

Making local experiences equitable doesn’t mean they have to be identical. In fact, where many companies go wrong is that they try to enforce a cookie-cutter approach onto all markets, in the name of “global leverage.” But in doing so, they miss out on the importance of local adaptations that ensure their customers across markets are equally happy with the value they’re receiving, even if they define and derive that value in different ways.

As a shining example, look no further than Starbucks. At the product level, customers can order many of the same standard menu items in every location globally. But to appeal to local tastes, a customer in Peru, where the Lúcuma fruit grows, can order a Lúcuma Crème Frappuccino from their local barista. Starbucks adapts not only their physical products, but their digital outreach to customers too. They achieve global consistency offline as well as online, but the company customizes their digital marketing campaigns in each country tied to the seasons, holidays, and local traditions.

The table below offers some examples of adaptations a company might make in order to ensure it is providing an equitable experience to customers in a new market:

Ensuring a Globally Equitable Experience

The table below offers some examples of adaptations a company might make in order to ensure it’s providing an equitable customer experience as it enters new markets around the world.

A large website that has built up over the years with large amounts of content

Initial local market approach

A microsite with just the core content that enables customers to understand the parts of your offering that matter most to them

Why it’s globally equitable

You didn’t create such a large website for your home market overnight, so you don’t need to localize all of it. Start small in your local market and focus on their unique needs.

Customer experience area

A large inside-sales team that sells directly to customers

Initial local market approach

A local partner that resells and implements your products

Why it’s globally equitable

In a local market you can’t recreate the trust you’ve built up in your home market over many years. Going in with an already-trusted brand makes more sense.

Customer experience area

A fully featured product offering with numerous tiers, bundling options, and pricing add-ons

Initial local market approach

A lightweight version of your product without features that won’t work in the local market, offered for a single, lower price point

Why it’s globally equitable

Your business mix is more complex in your home market than in a new local one. It’s often better to customize than to sell things that they don’t need or can’t use.

Customer experience area

An in-app support tool that offers automated support via a chatbot with the option to reach a human 24/7

Initial local market approach

A local phone number that routes to a local human rep, only during local business hours

Why it’s globally equitable

It might be logistically easier to launch in the local market with human support reps than to localize your chatbot, and you can build greater brand trust with humans initially. The cost of human talent is typically lower in the new market anyway.

The temptation at most global companies, especially ones with digital and software products, is to always do the same thing, all at once, in every market. While this is a natural inclination, it actually can have the opposite effect and require investments that are disproportional for each local market. Instead of doing “all things in all markets,” be selective and show a true willingness to adapt. Encourage your employees to flex their creative muscles when thinking about what strategy will work best for a new local market so that they can derive equal value, even if the approaches vary. 

Ensure Your Organization Has a Globally Equitable Mindset

To truly create an equitable experience for your customers, you will need to focus as early as possible on driving what I call a GLOBE mindset, one that’s geography-agnostic, linguistically inclusive, operationalized, balanced, and empathetic. This will ensure that all of your employees — not just those with “international” in their titles — keep the global equity momentum going in perpetuity.

When you’re launching a new global initiative at your company, I recommend asking these five questions to ensure your approach is equitable:

If you get into the habit of putting these five simple principles at the center of your leadership team’s mindset, you’ll naturally be driving equitable experiences for your customers around the globe.

Today, international expansion is more ongoing in nature, with a constant pace of change. The more you focus on driving up value across all markets in an equitable way, the greater the financial success that will follow — but only as a consequence of taking a new approach, one that places value on delivering equitable experiences to your local customers.

This content was originally published here.

The post How Global Companies Can Create a Consistent Customer Experience appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

Market capitalization, or market cap, is one measure of a company’s value as determined by the stock market. It is easily calculated by multiplying the company’s outstanding shares by its current share price.

In this graphic, we present a treemap chart that visualizes the world’s top 50 publicly-traded companies by market cap, using data as of Aug. 16, 2023.

While market capitalization is a simple way to compare publicly-traded companies, it does have some limitations. Most importantly, it does not include debt or cash in the calculation.

Data and Highlights

All of the data we used to create this graphic is included in the table below.
 

Company	Sector	Country	Market Cap (USD billions)
Apple	Information Technology	US	$2,777
Microsoft	Information Technology	US	$2,382
Saudi Aramco	Energy	Saudi Arabia	$2,222
Alphabet	Communication Services	US	$1,636
Amazon	Consumer Discretionary	US	$1,385
NVIDIA	Information Technology	US	$1,074
Berkshire Hathaway	Financials	US	$774
Meta Platforms	Communication Services	US	$754
Tesla	Consumer Discretionary	US	$715
Eli Lilly	Health Care	US	$519
Visa	Information Technology	US	$501
TSMC	Information Technology	Taiwan	$476
UnitedHealth	Health Care	US	$469
Johnson & Johnson	Health Care	US	$448
LVMH	Consumer Discretionary	France	$442
JPMorgan Chase	Financials	US	$436
Exxon Mobil	Energy	US	$430
Walmart	Consumer Staples	US	$429
Novo Nordisk	Health Care	Denmark	$418
Tencent	Communication Services	China	$389
Mastercard	Information Technology	US	$374
Procter & Gamble	Consumer Staples	US	$361
Broadcom	Information Technology	US	$344
Samsung	Information Technology	South Korea	$341
Home Depot	Consumer Discretionary	US	$335
Kweichow Moutai	Consumer Staples	China	$319
Nestlé	Consumer Staples	Switzerland	$319
Oracle	Information Technology	US	$313
Chevron	Energy	US	$297
Merck	Health Care	US	$276
AbbVie	Health Care	US	$267
Coca-Cola	Consumer Staples	US	$262
ASML	Information Technology	Netherlands	$258
Pepsico	Consumer Staples	US	$249
Costco	Consumer Staples	US	$248
L’Oréal	Consumer Discretionary	France	$244
Roche	Health Care	Switzerland	$241
International Holding Company	Financials	UAE	$240
Adobe	Information Technology	US	$235
Bank of America	Financials	US	$233
Alibaba	Consumer Discretionary	China	$228
Hermès	Consumer Discretionary	France	$227
Toyota	Consumer Discretionary	Japan	$220
Novartis	Health Care	Switzerland	$216
AstraZeneca	Health Care	UK	$216
Cisco	Information Technology	US	$216
Reliance Industries	Energy	India	$213
McDonald	Consumer Discretionary	US	$208
Thermo Fisher Scientific	Health Care	US	$204
Shell	Energy	UK	$204

From this data, we can see that there are only a handful of trillion dollar companies in the world, including Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia.

Two former members of the trillion dollar club are Meta and Tesla, but both companies currently hover around the $700 billion range in terms of market capitalization. In 2022, Meta lost significant value as its earnings fell, while Tesla suffered from demand concerns.

Altogether, the 50 most valuable companies represent over $26.5 trillion in shareholder value. At a sector level, Information Technology is the most represented in the top 50, with $9.3 trillion in combined market cap. The next biggest sectors are Consumer Discretionary ($4.0 trillion) and Health Care ($3.3 trillion).

Geographical Breakdown

At a geographical level, the majority of the 50 most valuable companies are American. The following chart shows each country’s tally.

After the U.S., the three most represented countries are Switzerland, France, and China, with three companies apiece.

From Switzerland are companies such as Nestlé, Roche, and Novartis. The latter two are major players in the healthcare industry.

France’s companies in the top 50 list all belong to the Consumer Discretionary sector, and include fashion giants LVMH and Hermès, as well as L’Oréal, a global leader in cosmetics. Earlier this year, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault was officially the richest person in the world with a fortune of $215 billion.

Finally, from the Chinese side are two globally-recognized names in Tencent and Alibaba. China’s third company on this list is Kweichow Moutai, a partially state-owned producer of alcoholic beverages.

This content was originally published here.

The post The 50 Most Valuable Companies in the World in 2023 appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

According to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, the balance of global economic power is projected to shift dramatically in the coming decades.

More specifically, analysts believe that Asia could soon become the largest regional contributor to world GDP, surpassing the traditional economic powerhouses grouped together in the Developed Markets (DM) category.

In the graphic above, we’ve visualized Goldman Sachs’ real GDP forecasts for the year 2050 using a voronoi diagram.

Data and Highlights

The following table includes a regional breakdown of expected real GDP in 2050. All figures are based on 2021 USD.

Based on these projections, Asia (ex DM) will represent 40% of global GDP, slightly ahead of Developed Markets’ expected share of 36%. This would mark a massive shift from 50 years ago (2000), when DMs represented over 77% of global GDP.

Asia

Focusing on Asia, China and India will account for the majority of the region’s expected GDP in 2050, though growth in China will have tapered off significantly. In fact, Goldman Sachs expects annual real GDP growth in the country to average 1.1% through the 2050s. This is surprisingly slower than America’s expected 1.4% annual growth during the same decade.

The fastest growing economies in Asia during the 2050s will be India (3.1% annually), Bangladesh (3.0% annually), and the Philippines (3.5% annually). These countries are expected to thrive thanks to their high population growth rates and relatively low median age, which translates into a larger work force.

Latin America

Turning our attention to Latin America, we can see that the region will account for a relatively small 7% of global GDP in 2050. According to Goldman Sachs’ previous projections from 2011, many Latin American countries have underperformed over the past decade. For example, Brazil’s real GDP shrank from $2.7 trillion in 2010, to $1.5 trillion in 2020.

Because of these setbacks, Goldman Sachs believes Indonesia will be able to overtake Brazil as the world’s largest emerging market before 2050.

That said, Brazil’s economic ranking is still expected to climb above France and Canada by then, if these projections prove to be accurate.

This content was originally published here.

The post Visualizing the Future Global Economy by GDP in 2050 appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

By the end of 2023, the world economy is expected to have a gross domestic product (GDP) of $105 trillion, or $5 trillion higher than the year before, according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections from its 2023 World Economic Outlook report.

In nominal terms, that’s a 5.3% increase in global GDP. In inflation-adjusted terms, that would be a 2.8% increase.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total value of economic output—goods and services—produced within a given time frame by both the private and public sectors. All numbers used in this article, unless otherwise specified, are nominal figures, and do not account for inflation.

The year started with turmoil for the global economy, with financial markets rocked by the collapse of several mid-sized U.S. banks alongside persistent inflation and tightening monetary conditions in most countries. Nevertheless, some economies have proven to be resilient, and are expected to register growth from 2022.

Ranking Countries by Economic Size in 2023

The U.S. is expected to continue being the biggest economy in 2023 with a projected GDP of $26.9 trillion for the year. This is more than the sum of the GDPs of 174 countries ranked from Indonesia (17th) to Tuvalu (191st).

China stays steady at second place with a projected $19.4 trillion GDP in 2023. Most of the top-five economies remain in the same positions from 2022, with one notable exception.

India is expected to climb past the UK to become the fifth-largest economy with a projected 2023 GDP of $3.7 trillion.

Here’s a look at the size of every country’s economy in 2023, according to IMF’s estimates.

Rank	Country	GDP (USD)	% of Total
1	U.S.	$26,855B	25.54%
2	China	$19,374B	18.43%
3	Japan	$4,410B	4.19%
4	Germany	$4,309B	4.10%
5	India	$3,737B	3.55%
6	UK	$3,159B	3.00%
7	France	$2,923B	2.78%
8	Italy	$2,170B	2.06%
9	Canada	$2,090B	1.99%
10	Brazil	$2,081B	1.98%
11	Russia	$2,063B	1.96%
12	South Korea	$1,722B	1.64%
13	Australia	$1,708B	1.62%
14	Mexico	$1,663B	1.58%
15	Spain	$1,492B	1.42%
16	Indonesia	$1,392B	1.32%
17	Netherlands	$1,081B	1.03%
18	Saudi Arabia	$1,062B	1.01%
19	Türkiye	$1,029B	0.98%
20	Switzerland	$870B	0.83%
21	Taiwan	$791B	0.75%
22	Poland	$749B	0.71%
23	Argentina	$641B	0.61%
24	Belgium	$624B	0.59%
25	Sweden	$599B	0.57%
26	Ireland	$594B	0.57%
27	Thailand	$574B	0.55%
28	Norway	$554B	0.53%
29	Israel	$539B	0.51%
30	Singapore	$516B	0.49%
31	Austria	$515B	0.49%
32	Nigeria	$507B	0.48%
33	UAE	$499B	0.47%
34	Vietnam	$449B	0.43%
35	Malaysia	$447B	0.43%
36	Philippines	$441B	0.42%
37	Bangladesh	$421B	0.40%
38	Denmark	$406B	0.39%
39	South Africa	$399B	0.38%
40	Egypt	$387B	0.37%
41	Hong Kong	$383B	0.36%
42	Iran	$368B	0.35%
43	Chile	$359B	0.34%
44	Romania	$349B	0.33%
45	Colombia	$335B	0.32%
46	Czech Republic	$330B	0.31%
47	Finland	$302B	0.29%
48	Peru	$268B	0.26%
49	Iraq	$268B	0.25%
50	Portugal	$268B	0.25%
51	New Zealand	$252B	0.24%
52	Kazakhstan	$246B	0.23%
53	Greece	$239B	0.23%
54	Qatar	$220B	0.21%
55	Algeria	$206B	0.20%
56	Hungary	$189B	0.18%
57	Kuwait	$165B	0.16%
58	Ethiopia	$156B	0.15%
59	Ukraine	$149B	0.14%
60	Morocco	$139B	0.13%
61	Slovak Republic	$128B	0.12%
62	Ecuador	$121B	0.12%
63	Dominican Republic	$121B	0.12%
64	Puerto Rico	$121B	0.11%
65	Kenya	$118B	0.11%
66	Angola	$118B	0.11%
67	Oman	$105B	0.10%
68	Guatemala	$102B	0.10%
69	Bulgaria	$101B	0.10%
70	Venezuela	$97B	0.09%
71	Uzbekistan	$92B	0.09%
72	Luxembourg	$87B	0.08%
73	Tanzania	$85B	0.08%
74	Turkmenistan	$83B	0.08%
75	Croatia	$79B	0.08%
76	Lithuania	$78B	0.07%
77	Costa Rica	$78B	0.07%
78	Uruguay	$77B	0.07%
79	Panama	$77B	0.07%
80	Côte d’Ivoire	$77B	0.07%
81	Serbia	$74B	0.07%
82	Belarus	$74B	0.07%
83	Azerbaijan	$70B	0.07%
84	DRC	$69B	0.07%
85	Slovenia	$68B	0.06%
86	Ghana	$67B	0.06%
87	Myanmar	$64B	0.06%
88	Jordan	$52B	0.05%
89	Tunisia	$50B	0.05%
90	Uganda	$50B	0.05%
91	Cameroon	$49B	0.05%
92	Latvia	$47B	0.05%
93	Sudan	$47B	0.04%
94	Libya	$46B	0.04%
95	Bolivia	$46B	0.04%
96	Bahrain	$45B	0.04%
97	Paraguay	$43B	0.04%
98	Nepal	$42B	0.04%
99	Estonia	$42B	0.04%
100	Macao	$36B	0.03%
101	Honduras	$34B	0.03%
102	El Salvador	$34B	0.03%
103	Papua New Guinea	$33B	0.03%
104	Senegal	$31B	0.03%
105	Cyprus	$31B	0.03%
106	Cambodia	$31B	0.03%
107	Zimbabwe	$30B	0.03%
108	Zambia	$29B	0.03%
109	Iceland	$29B	0.03%
110	Bosnia & Herzegovina	$28B	0.03%
111	Trinidad & Tobago	$28B	0.03%
112	Georgia	$28B	0.03%
113	Haiti	$27B	0.03%
114	Armenia	$24B	0.02%
115	Guinea	$23B	0.02%
116	Burkina Faso	$21B	0.02%
117	Mali	$21B	0.02%
118	Gabon	$20B	0.02%
119	Albania	$20B	0.02%
120	Mozambique	$20B	0.02%
121	Botswana	$20B	0.02%
122	Yemen	$20B	0.02%
123	Malta	$19B	0.02%
124	Benin	$19B	0.02%
125	West Bank & Gaza	$19B	0.02%
126	Nicaragua	$17B	0.02%
127	Jamaica	$17B	0.02%
128	Mongolia	$17B	0.02%
129	Niger	$17B	0.02%
130	Guyana	$16B	0.02%
131	Madagascar	$16B	0.02%
132	Moldova	$16B	0.02%
133	Brunei Darussalam	$16B	0.01%
134	North Macedonia	$15B	0.01%
135	Equatorial Guinea	$15B	0.01%
136	Mauritius	$15B	0.01%
137	Bahamas	$14B	0.01%
138	Laos	$14B	0.01%
139	Namibia	$13B	0.01%
140	Rwanda	$13B	0.01%
141	Congo	$13B	0.01%
142	Tajikistan	$13B	0.01%
143	Kyrgyz Republic	$12B	0.01%
144	Chad	$12B	0.01%
145	Malawi	$11B	0.01%
146	Mauritania	$11B	0.01%
147	Kosovo	$10B	0.01%
148	Togo	$9B	0.01%
149	Somalia	$9B	0.01%
150	Montenegro	$7B	0.01%
151	South Sudan	$7B	0.01%
152	Maldives	$7B	0.01%
153	Barbados	$6B	0.01%
154	Fiji	$5B	0.01%
155	Eswatini	$5B	0.00%
156	Liberia	$4B	0.00%
157	Djibouti	$4B	0.00%
158	Andorra	$4B	0.00%
159	Aruba	$4B	0.00%
160	Sierra Leone	$4B	0.00%
161	Suriname	$3B	0.00%
162	Burundi	$3B	0.00%
163	Belize	$3B	0.00%
164	Central African Republic	$3B	0.00%
165	Bhutan	$3B	0.00%
166	Eritrea	$3B	0.00%
167	Lesotho	$3B	0.00%
168	Cabo Verde	$2B	0.00%
169	Gambia	$2B	0.00%
170	Saint Lucia	$2B	0.00%
171	East Timor	$2B	0.00%
172	Seychelles	$2B	0.00%
173	Guinea-Bissau	$2B	0.00%
174	Antigua & Barbuda	$2B	0.00%
175	San Marino	$2B	0.00%
176	Solomon Islands	$2B	0.00%
177	Comoros	$1B	0.00%
178	Grenada	$1B	0.00%
179	Vanuatu	$1B	0.00%
180	Saint Kitts & Nevis	$1B	0.00%
181	Saint Vincent & the Grenadines	$1B	0.00%
182	Samoa	$1B	0.00%
183	Dominica	$1B	0.00%
184	São Tomé & Príncipe	$1B	0.00%
185	Tonga	$1B	0.00%
186	Micronesia	$0.5B	0.00%
187	Marshall Islands	$0.3B	0.00%
188	Palau	$0.3B	0.00%
189	Kiribati	$0.2B	0.00%
190	Nauru	$0.2B	0.00%
191	Tuvalu	$0.1B	0.00%

Note: Projections for Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria are missing from IMF’s database for 2023.

Here are the largest economies for each region of the world.

• Africa: Nigeria ($506.6 billion)
• Asia: China ($19.4 trillion)
• Europe: Germany ($4.3 trillion)
• Middle East: Saudi Arabia ($1.1 trillion)
• North & Central America: U.S. ($26.9 trillion)
• Oceania: Australia ($1.7 trillion)
• South America: Brazil ($2.1 trillion)

Ranked: 2023’s Shrinking Economies

In fact, 29 economies are projected to shrink from their 2022 sizes, leading to nearly $500 billion in lost output.

Russia will see the biggest decline, with a projected $150 billion contraction this year. This is equal to about one-third of total decline of all 29 countries with shrinking economies.

Egypt (-$88 billion) and Canada (-$50 billion) combined make up another one-third of lost output.

In Egypt’s case, the drop can be partly explained by the country’s currency (Egyptian pound), which has dropped in value against the U.S. dollar by about 50% since mid-2022.

Russia and Canada are some of the world’s largest oil producers and the oil price has fallen since 2022. A further complication for Russia is that the country has been forced to sell oil at a steep discount because of Western sanctions.

Here are the projected changes in GDP for all countries facing year-over-year declines:

Country	Region	2022–23 Change (USD)	2022–23 Change (%)
Russia	Europe	-$152.65B	-6.9%
Egypt	Africa	-$88.12B	-18.5%
Canada	North America	-$50.17B	-2.3%
Saudi Arabia	Middle East	-$46.25B	-4.2%
Bangladesh	Asia	-$39.69B	-8.6%
Norway	Europe	-$25.16B	-4.3%
Kuwait	Middle East	-$19.85B	-10.8%
Oman	Middle East	-$9.77B	-8.5%
Colombia	South America	-$9.25B	-2.7%
UAE	Middle East	-$8.56B	-1.7%
South Africa	Africa	-$6.69B	-1.6%
Ghana	Africa	-$6.22B	-8.5%
Qatar	Middle East	-$5.91B	-2.6%
Angola	Africa	-$3.54B	-2.9%
Zimbabwe	Africa	-$3.09B	-9.4%
Ukraine	Europe	-$2.79B	-1.8%
Sudan	Africa	-$2.72B	-5.5%
Iraq	Middle East	-$2.47B	-0.9%
East Timor	Asia	-$1.67B	-45.7%
Gabon	Africa	-$1.60B	-7.3%
Equatorial Guinea	Africa	-$1.35B	-8.2%
Malawi	Africa	-$1.24B	-9.9%
Laos	Asia	-$1.21B	-7.9%
Brunei	Asia	-$1.13B	-6.8%
Yemen	Middle East	-$1.12B	-5.4%
South Sudan	Africa	-$0.86B	-10.9%
Burundi	Africa	-$0.66B	-16.9%
Sierra Leone	Africa	-$0.42B	-10.6%
Suriname	South America	-$0.05B	-1.4%

The presence of Saudi Arabia, Norway, Kuwait, and Oman in the top 10 biggest GDP contractions further highlights the potential impact on GDP for oil-producing countries, according to the IMF’s projections.

More recently, producers have been cutting supply in an effort to boost prices, but concerns of slowing global oil demand in the wake of a subdued Chinese economy (the world’s second-largest oil consumer), have kept oil prices lower than in 2022 regardless.

The Footnote on GDP Forecasts

While organizations like the IMF have gotten fairly good at GDP forecasting, it’s still worth remembering that these are projections and assumptions made at the beginning of the year that may not hold true by the end of 2023.

For example, JP Morgan has already changed their forecast for China’s 2023 real GDP growth six times in as many months after expectations of broad-based pandemic-recovery spending did not materialize in the country.

The key takeaway from IMF’s projections for 2023 GDP growth rests on how well countries restrict inflation without stifling growth, all amidst tense liquidity conditions.

Where Does This Data Come From?

Source: The International Monetary Fund’s Datamapper which uses projections made in the April 2023 World Economic Outlook report.

Note: Projections for Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria are missing from the IMF’s database. Furthermore, all figures used in the article, unless specified, are nominal GDP numbers and rates.

The post Visualizing the $105 Trillion World Economy in One Chart appeared first on Visual Capitalist.

This content was originally published here.

The post Visualizing the $105 Trillion World Economy in One Chart appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.

The Fear & Greed Index, created and popularized by CNN, is a powerful tool that captures investor sentiment and confidence levels. It rises when markets are greedy and falls when investors are fearful.

In this infographic sponsored by Fidelity Investments, we compare the Fear & Greed Index with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) to see the connection between volatile markets and the impulses of investors.

The Fear & Greed Index

The Fear & Greed Index combines the following indicators to see how much they differ from their averages.

• Market momentum
• Stock price strength
• Stock price breadth
• Put and call options
• Junk bond demand
• Market volatility
• Safe haven demand

The index gives each indicator equal weighting in calculating a score from 0 to 100, with 100 representing maximum greediness and 0 signaling maximum fear.

CBOE Volatility Index (VIX)

The VIX gauges expected price changes in S&P 500 Index options over the next month, indicating market volatility. It has lower values during bull markets and higher values during bear markets.

When these two indexes are correlated, it becomes evident that lowering market volatility corresponds to heightened investor greed.

Impact of Key Events on Investor Sentiment

This infographic highlights significant points emphasizing the relationship between the two indexes.

September and October 2022

During this period, rising prices, interest rates, and the possibility of a recession led to the highest level of fear observed between May 2022 and May 2023.

February 2023

February brought a breath of fresh air as GDP growth led to the highest levels of investor confidence during the period under study.

March 2023

The collapse of three mid-sized tech-friendly banks triggered a wave of extreme fear. It served as a stark reminder of the inherent vulnerability of financial markets and how quickly panic can spread.

Weathering the Storm

By proactively thinking about their emotional impulses, investors can better navigate volatile conditions, and what’s more, benefit from them.

Fidelity’s new market volatility guide provides invaluable insights, empowering investors to make informed decisions in unpredictable markets while avoiding emotional biases.

This content was originally published here.

The post Charted: Market Volatility and Investor Emotions appeared first on Matt Dallisson Global Executive Search | Leadership Consulting.