Europe faces the difficult task of achieving its energy independence and security. The Union is juggling soaring energy prices and price volatility while trying to also keep its ambitious climate goals on track. So far, the mild winter has helped reduce the impact, but this can still change.
On July 14th, 2021, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (“CBAM”) under the EU’s new Green Deal. The CBAM aims to counter the avoidance of EU’s climate targets by outsourcing production to non-EU countries.
On March 28th, 2022, Shanghai started going into a city-wide lockdown to combat the new spread of the omicron variant of Covid-19. The lockdowns were initially planned to end on the 1st of April for Pudong and neighboring districts, and on April 5th for Puxi. Yet, at the time of this writing, the lockdown is still in place with no clear end in sight.
As of this day, the two main sides of Shanghai (west of the Huangpu River, called Puxi, and east of the river, Pudong) are under various forms of lockdown to counter the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Our team members in Shanghai are all under different forms of lockdown depending on the areas they live in.
The aftermath of a global pandemic and ongoing disastrous war in Ukraine has left the world riddled with uncertainty. Although it is difficult to look beyond the tragedy, companies and investors alike need to examine their investment strategy.
A question we hear often from target companies and investors is “Do we really need to be present in China?”. The answer is “Yes” and here is why.
Every experienced manager in China will tell you that the main challenge is to find good people and build an effective team. This sounds strange in a country with 1.4 billion people and 7.6 million fresh graduates each year [1], but HR is the bottleneck. This applies to multinationals as well as Chinese companies.
