Archives for November 2019

Asia is “relying on imports flowing through long supply chains from the Americas, Europe and Africa,” states a report from PwC, Rabobank, and investment firm Temasek.

“If this investment does not materialize, we believe the industry will struggle to keep up with demand, resulting in poorer food outcomes for Asia’s population,” the report explains.

Food spending is expected to more than double by 2030 from the current $4 trillion.

“In general, countries in Latin America, East Africa, and South Asia are net food exporters, while most of the rest of Asia and Africa remain net food importers,” the Key Statistics and Trends in International Trade report added.

It pointed out that climate change and population growth will also add to the region’s problems by causing supply issues, as well as price volatility. The amount of arable land for each person in Asia is expected to decline by five percent by 2030.

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These factors paint a stark picture, according to PwC’s Richard Skinner who is Asia Pacific deals strategy and operations leader. He told CNBC: “If we don’t solve this, we will be in a bad position in 10 years’ time.”

There’s an $800 billion investment opportunity in Asia’s agri-food industry that needs to be filled in the next decade, Skinner said. He explained that technology and innovation, in particular, will be key to solving that.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/474432-asia-facing-food-crisis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

PayXpert will become the unique acquirer of MIR cards in Europe, and the UK will be the first country where the system will operate, according to one of the organizers of the business event, the Roscongress Foundation.

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“The launch of our joint project with PayXpert is the first and foremost step in the development of MIR acquiring in Europe, which will lay the foundation for new promising trends in the foreign expansion of Russian payment cards,” said CEO of the MIR payment system Vladimir Komlev.

Turkey embraces Russia’s national payment system credit card Mir

The Russian payment system is expected to open up access to the Russian consumer market and boost the turnover between Russia and the UK, as it will simplify payment transactions for customers of different companies. The tourist sector is also set to benefit from the project, since more than 40 million Russian tourists visit Europe annually.

“Demonstrating the potential of Russia’s financial services abroad is extremely important,” Russian Trade Representative in the UK Boris Abramov said, vowing to assist in connecting new organizations in the UK to the payment scheme.

PayXpert says that MIR is “a solid cross border payment system” that can make a company attractive to more than 147 million Russian potential customers and give access to new Eastern European and Asian markets.

Russia started developing its own national payment system when the US targeted it with sanctions in 2014. Back then clients of several Russian banks were temporarily unable to use Visa and Mastercard due to the restrictions. Since the introduction of the new system, Russian banks have already issued more than 69.7 million MIR cards.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/474423-russian-payment-system-europe/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

So, while we spend time being thankful this Thursday as we gather around the dinner table with family and friends, we should take a moment to extend that thanks to the energy that will be consumed making the turkey and all the trimmings.

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But you might be surprised to know that Americans consume far less energy on Thanksgiving than on just any old Thursday—despite the fact that turkeys take nearly all night in the oven to cook.

Thanksgiving by the numbers

Size Matters

Americans aren’t the only ones with a weight problem; turkeys are getting a bit too big for their britches, too. The average Thanksgiving turkey size in 2019 is 30 pounds! That’s one big bird, and more than double from the 13 pound average sold in the 1930s. The fact that turkeys have bulged into enormous proportions means that it takes longer to cook. A 30-pound bird (stuffed, or course, because who doesn’t like in-the-bird stuffing?) can take 6.25 hours to cook in a 350° oven. The unstuffed equivalent takes about 1.25 hours less time to roast.

The Electric Cost of Roasting Each Tom

We did the math, and the average electric oven (non-convection) of the 2000-2400-watt variety will chew through a little over 12 kWh of electricity to cook that tom for 6 hours. At an average cost of 13.3 cents per kwh for electricity in the United States, turkey cookers will pay about $1.60 for the electricity to cook their birds (a couple of pennies more if you keep peeking at it while its cooking).

All Together Now

Americans will consume a staggering 46,000,000 turkeys this Thanksgiving. At 12 kWh each, that’s 552,000,000 kWh—for a single meal. That’s surely a large number.

Now, not everyone has an electric oven, so there’s that. About 63 percent of American homes have electric ovens, according to 2018 EIA data (with 33 percent using natural gas and five percent using propane), so this 552,000,000 kWh can be reduced to just 347,760,000 kWh. This could also be expressed as 347 gigawatts. That’s the equivalent of all the nuclear power capacity of the entire world in 2012, according to the IAEA, or the entire coal capacity installed in America in 2011.

Gobble it up!

But fret not. You can eat your turkey in good conscience—you’re actually doing your part to save the environment by eating the turkey. And here’s why:

An estimated 88 percent of all Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving. There are 327,000,000 people living in America, so this means that 287,760,000 people eat turkey on Thanksgiving—but only 46,000,000 of those turkey eaters have the dual role of turkey eater and turkey roaster.

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That means that the remaining 241,760,000 people in America are your freeloading family members that are coming to your house to eat your turkey. And if those people are all at your house to eat your turkey, what are they not doing that they would be doing on any other day? Cooking, of course!

So, while cooking a turkey may seem an electrical extravagance, people are consolidating, so it actually is more of an energy savings than an indulgence, because fewer people are cooking that day—a lot fewer.

Other Thanksgiving Day energy considerations

Also, while families are together on this day waiting for the turkey to be done, fewer TVs are playing the requisite football games. Less energy.

More people are traveling. More energy. According to Gas Buddy, 65 percent of Americans travel by car. Gasoline inventories in the US rose last week, but gasoline prices are holding pretty steady compared to the last three thanksgivings.

Other energy is consumed in greater quantities on Thanksgiving as well, for preparing the rest of the holiday feast such as pumpkin pie, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes—three very critical Thanksgiving must-haves. All these trimmings likely add another couple million kWh to the energy draw for Thanksgiving.

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Residential heating. Less energy. As people are grouped into fewer abodes on Thanksgiving Day, heating sources are turned down or off while they stay with family—sometimes for days if they have traveled significant distances. This decreases the amount of energy used for heating.

Estimates are that energy usage typically drops 5-10 percent on Thanksgiving Day, compared to the November average, all thanks to that delicious turkey. And the estimated savings of that energy could amount to more than $2 billion in energy bills. 

So, with conscience clear, travel to visit your family. Roast that bird. Eat well and be merry. Your overindulgence on Thanksgiving Day will balance out in the end, saving more electricity than you consume. 

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/474428-energy-americans-thanksgiving-turkey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

On Tuesday, delegations from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a private equity fund established by the RDIF and China Investment Corporation (CIC) called Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) joined the 6th meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Chinese Commission for Investment. Apart from the multi-billion dollar cross-border projects, the two sides discussed investment, trade and economic cooperation.

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“The Committee has already helped implement cross-border projects worth more than $10 billion. The RDIF and CIC have also invested through the RCIF in a number of projects independently,” the Russian wealth fund said in a statement after the talks.

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At the same time Russia’s sovereign wealth fund together with the RCIF and the investment fund for Guangdong province, Guangdong Utrust Investment Holdings, agreed on key terms to set up $1 billion fund. The body, dubbed the Russian-Chinese Greater Bay Area Fund, is aimed at strengthening mutual trade and economic ties between companies from the two states. It will also promote Russian business in Guangdong, the Chinese province that accounts for the biggest share of the country’s GDP, and encouraging local companies to enter the Russian market.

“This fund creates great opportunities for Russian companies,” Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, said. “Cooperation between RDIF, RCIF and Guangdong Utrust is developing steadily, and I am confident that we are moving in the right direction towards large-scale joint projects that will serve to further strengthen the partnership between Russia and China.”

China is Russia’s largest trade partner, with the volume of trade exceeding $100 billion in 2018 and expected to double in five years. In recent months, Beijing and Moscow have also been working to boost mutual trade in their national currencies, the ruble and the yuan, as they move to lessen dependence on the US dollar.