Africa is not easily pigeonholed, and making generalizations about its consumers is a risky proposition. The continent has 1 billion inhabitants"”speaking more than 2,100 languages and spanning 54 countries that cover an area larger than China, the U.S., India, and Europe combined. Despite this diversity, one thing is clear, however: a new consumer class is emerging across Africa"”one with increasing purchasing power and a hunger for products and services that once seemed unattainable.
Decisions on what, how much, where, and when to stock product across the extended global CP supply chain directly impact corporate profitability, positively or negatively.
The Panama Canal is due for at least one additional expansion, according to Alberto Aleman Zubieta, immediate past commissioner of the Panama Canal Authority.
Steady, albeit slow business growth. A U.S. economy that continues to expand, but at a moderate rate. Weak fundamentals in most markets in the first half. Those are some of the comments of chief executive officers of Class I railroads as they assess the outlook for 2013.
IATA's latest Airline Industry Forecast predicts average international freight growth of three percent per year over the next five years. That would mean volumes will total 34.5 million tonnes by 2016, 4.8 million tonnes more than the 2011 total.
The U.S. Senate has approved new sanctions on trade with Iran's energy, port, shipping and shipbuilding sectors, designating these areas as entities of proliferation.
The DHL Global Connectedness Index, a comprehensive analysis of the state of globalization around the world, concludes that the world is less globally connected today than it was in 2007. The report, drawing on over one million data points from 2005 to 2011, documents how global connectedness, measured by international flows of trade, capital, information and people, grew robustly from the report's baseline year of 2005 to 2007, and then dropped sharply at the onset of the financial crisis. Despite modest gains since 2009, global connectedness has yet to recapture its pre-crisis peak.