Perpetuating Dependence Members of the African Union want the EU to subsidize Africa’s capacity for producing value-added goods, and then they want Europe to import the resulting products. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is saying that Europe could concede better preferential access for goods from the richer countries in Africa, something currently reserved just for the poorer ones. The EU will be making a mistake if it does not mimic the U.S. in insisting that African countries also improve the access they give to imports. The WTO is in trouble because years ago rich countries granted preferential terms without reciprocity to the vast majority of the organization’s members. That majority now refuses to ever grant more balanced...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.