Coface

31 May 2024:

➦ Biotechnologies: Europe struggles with China-US rivalry

• Biotechnology companies, more commonly known as biotechs, play a vital role in improving the treatment and survival of patients suffering from rare, difficult-to-treat diseases, as well as in safeguarding their well-being. Despite the importance of the sector in Europe, the continent is losing ground to the United-States and China.

24 May 2024:

➦ Cocoa: a deceptive fall in prices

• In the absence of any corrective signs, cocoa bean prices are likely to remain very high in the medium term. While global demand will reach 4.8 million tonnes this year, supply is unlikely to exceed 4.5 million, mainly because the two main cocoa-producing countries – Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana (3.3 million tonnes of cocoa beans in 2022, i.e. 58% of global production) – are unable to significantly increase their production levels.

03 May 2024:

➦ CEE Insolvency Study 2024

• In 2023 company insolvencies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region continued their growth trend that was initiated back in 2020. While businesses experienced reduced adverse effects from the Covid-19 pandemic in both 2020 and 2021 thanks to wide-scale support measures, next few years brought an even more challenging environment after governments phased out most of this support. As a reminder, the support mentioned included moratoria on insolvency applications as well as various measures to cushion the pandemic impact on the liquidity situation of companies to save them from bankruptcies.

➦ The proliferation of coups d’État in Africa: towards a new, more unstable era?

• In July and August 2023, coups d’État occurred in Niger and Gabon respectively, bringing this type of event back into the spotlight. They fit into a trend of government overthrows that has been on the rise since 2019 in Central and West Africa, particularly in the Sahel. Sudan (2019 and 2021), Mali (2020 and 2021), Guinea (2021) and Burkina Faso (2022, with two coups d’État) have experienced these political upheavals. When looking at the evolution of coups d’État worldwide from the 1950s to the present day, we observe a greater concentration of coups in Africa since the early 2000s, a trend that has been increasingly evident over the last five years.