Hong Kong is Trouble Under a requirement from Congress, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous from China. The announcement is in response to Beijing’s imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong this week, but it has much larger potential implications. Washington could now impose economic and trade restrictions that would most certainly result in retaliation. Hong Kong is the sixth largest export market for U.S. agricultural goods, buying $4.2 billion worth of food in 2018 alone. Overall, the U.S. has a larger trade surplus with Hong Kong than any other market. It has been the workaround into the Mainland market when selling directly was challenging. EU Mugs the FAANG&rsquo...
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.
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...