#30. What COVID-19 impacted, and the resilient - Trends IV
Trade relationships, funding rounds, travel bans, online harassment, and 3 recommended articles.
Welcome! If you want to know:
How are funding rounds in Africa and trade relationships in Latin America? 💸🌎
The headwinds of COVID-19 in Japan, and how women in Ugandan politics deal with social media? 🗾📴
Read 3 great Emerging Market articles… 🚢💻
Keep reading…
International trade, VC deals, and the big tech crackdown
One of the pillars of soft power in China is its commercial relationships worldwide. Below, its trade relationships with Latin America, which multiplied x25 in 20 years and were not as affected by the pandemic.
The VC deal flow rhythm doesn’t seem to stop this year. Below, TechCabal gathers the most relevant rounds in Africa this week.
The big tech crackdown continues: Chinese regulators are forcing Ant Group to separate payment from loans. It will break one of the strongest competitive advantages of Ant Group: taking advantage of financial data for other banking products. This is a double edge sword, as there is room for conflict of interest.
Failure story: travel bans, semiconductor crisis and online harassment
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and each government is dealing with it to the best that it can. In Japan, their conservative approach banning international travel is costing them business and reputation; while not being as effective to halt the virus in the current situation.
The COVID-19 infections in Southeast Asia, on the other hand, have impacted the supply of in-vehicle semiconductors, due to the suspension of production in plants. This has caused automakers to cut production up to as much as 10%.
Women in Ugandan politics were almost absent on Twitter campaigning. The reason? The online violence they experience in the platform mixed with sexism; causing them to avoid being so present online and stop pursuing a high reach.
Source recommendations: Emerging Market articles
I continued with the thread of sources (long time, no see!) yesterday with a few faves:
Emerging World - The Workhorse of Globalization: The Container Ship. Behind our reality of “Buy Now”, a reflection of the most interesting element of this infrastructure: the container ship.
Frontier Fintech: The Global Digital Wallet Opportunity.
A global analysis of wallets, from incumbents in the US like CashApp to Tinkoff in Russia and Kuda in Africa; including the example of M-Pesa in Kenya and the challenges that regulations will pose for wallets.
Samora just hit 1,000 subs and he’s onto something bigger… so don’t miss out!
Rest of world: In Argentina, cheap government-issued netbooks sparked a musical renaissance.
I’m a big fan of music, and as you know, of stories in Emerging Markets. In this article, rest of world tells the stories of Argentinian artists that I enjoy like L-Gante, who produced their first music hits on government-issued laptops. That’s the coolest side-effect I can think of in a program like that.