China – Primal Group

US Trade War with China Spells Opportunity for Brazil

The recent trade war initiated by the US with tariffs against several of its major trade partners has led to a reshuffling of trade alliances across the world. One of the major winners of this trade war is Brazil. The South American superpower is now the largest exporter of soybeans to China and the eastern power has been making major infrastructure investments into Brazilian agriculture, marking the development of the trade partnership between the two countries. Brazil’s agriculture industry has been experiencing tremendous growth in recent years and this growth is expected to continue under a new government which has stated its support for the agriculture industry and foreign investment.…

A Boost in Confidence for the Global Economy

The World Bank has published their latest flagship report on the state of the global economy – Global Economic Prospects, 2017. Here’s what you need to know:

Be Cautiously Optimistic

Increased manufacturing and trade, rising market confidence and stabilizing commodity prices around the world have the World Bank pegging their global economic growth forecasts at 2.7% in 2017. While this will be the fastest rate of growth seen in the last seven years, long-term global economic prospects remain clouded by political uncertainty and renewed financial market turbulence.

Accelerating Global Economic Growth

Source: World Bank (2017)

Think Carefully About the Revival in Global Trade

Healthier industrial activity, investment and commodity prices fueled a revival in global trade growth to 4% in 2017, from a post-crisis low of 2.4% in 2016.…

Pension Funding Gap Set to Overtake Global GDP

The World Economic Forum has calculated that pension systems across the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia will have a joint shortfall of $224 trillion by 2050. If you add China and India to the equation, the combined gap nearly doubles to $400 trillion. That’s five times the size of the current global economic output. Such a shortfall places severe risks on the incomes and quality of life of future generations while setting the industrialized world up for one of the most widespread pension crises in history.

The Global Pension Crisis

Source: Mercer (2017)

Funding this shortfall will not be easy with global debt levels rising to more than 325% of GDP in 2017, reaching an eye-watering $217 trillion.…

Signs of Recovery for Global Commodity Markets

Although global commodity markets have been under stress for some time, investors are beginning to look at recent developments more opportunistically. According to the World Bank, prices for most commodities strengthened in the first quarter of 2017. Crude oil is expected to rise to an average of $55 per barrel (bbl) in 2017 from $43/bbl in 2016. Metal prices are projected to increase by 16% as a result of stronger demand in China and agricultural commodity prices are beginning to show early signs of recovery and growth. So why the positive forecasts when diversified commodity indices are down 5% so far this year?…

The Vastness of 21st Century Agriculture is Falling Short

Our global food industry sustains more people, with increased efficiency and a lower cost than any other period in human history. The problem is that big food continues to have an astounding influence on global health and the environment.

Through agricultural innovation and industrialization, the majority of the global food supply has now found itself under control of a select few major corporations around the world. The increase in efficiency is nothing short of impressive. The fact that California-based Earthbound Farm can harvest 10,000 pounds of lettuce per hour using a crew of only 12 people is simply astounding, especially considering that not so long ago this same production capacity would have taken a 40-person team the entire day.…

Living on Resources Taken from Future Generations

With the European debt crisis, the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and China’s continued economic slowdown compounding fears of a global financial system teetering on the edge, there is no doubt that we are living in an age of social and economic uncertainty. One of our few certainties is mankind’s increasing rate of consumption. There are only so many natural resources the earth can supply and on 8th August 2016 we breached our annual limit.

Earth Overshoot Day, also known as Ecological Debt Day, is when the human demand for natural resources exceeds what the planet can replenish annually. is the day when resource use outstrips our capacity for production, and is the point in the year when we have used as much land, trees and food that the planet’s ecosystem can regenerate.…

Heat Waves, Ice, Storms, Floods and Algae Bloom in 2015

Last year saw several records in the Earth’s climate system broken.

The American Meteorological Society alongside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and over 450 leading scientists from around the world all confirm that 2015 was the warmest year on record for land and sea temperatures. Last year, average temperatures rose by 1ºC higher than Preindustrial times. At the widely publicized United Nations COP21 meetings in Paris, 1.5ºC above preindustrial averages was pegged as the upper limit for climate change. We are getting so close to this limit that some scientists are already talking about a possible overshoot, which would have disastrous effects on our climate, biomes and all aspects of human activity, especially in securing the global food supply.…