The first days after the earthquake were defined by what had been lost. Apartment blocks lay in ruins, entire neighborhoods disappeared beneath the rubble, hospitals overflowed, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans found themselves without a home. Yet as the emergency slowly gave way to recovery, another realization has emerged, one less dramatic but perhaps more consequential.
Venezuela did not only lose buildings: it is now discovering that it has very little left with which to rebuild them.
Reconstruction is often described as something that begins after disaster strikes. In reality, it begins years earlier, with the reserves a country accumulates while times are good. Wealth matters, but so do things that rarely appear in economic statistics: functioning institutions, domestic industries, engineering firms, construction companies, reliable electricity, access to credit, insurance markets, emergency planning, skilled workers and the public trust needed to mobilize them all. These are the hidden reserves that allow societies to absorb shocks. The earthquake revealed that Venezuela had spent much of them long before the ground began to shake.
That depletion has become evident in almost every aspect of the response. Venezuela imports a significant share of the food it consumes and much of its medicine. The emergency quickly exhausted whatever inventories existed. Heavy machinery needed to clear debris had to be sought abroad. Medical supplies became scarce almost immediately. Temporary shelters proved insufficient, forcing thousands of survivors to remain in tents erected in parks and public spaces weeks after the disaster. The government is now considering housing many of them in schools, an understandable emergency measure made possible only because classes are suspended for the summer.
Temporary solutions, however, have a habit of becoming permanent in Venezuela. Families displaced by the Vargas Tragedy of 1999 and by the 2010 floods spent years, in some cases decades, living in shelters that were never meant to become homes. The earthquakes risk repeating a familiar pattern, not because Venezuelan authorities necessarily want it to, but because they have long lacked the capacity to offer anything else.
The Venezuelan diaspora contains an extraordinary concentration of precisely the human capital required to rebuild the country. Whether that expertise can be persuaded to return, even temporarily, remains an unlikely scenario.
Some will inevitably attribute this lack of preparedness primarily to sanctions. It is an understandable argument, but one that struggles to explain what the earthquakes actually exposed. The collapse of domestic industry, the deterioration of public infrastructure, chronic underinvestment in the electrical grid, the shrinking of Venezuela’s manufacturing base and the erosion of emergency response capacity all began years before oil sanctions were imposed.
Recent research has also challenged the idea that sanctions caused a discrete collapse in access to food and medicine, showing instead that essential imports had already fallen dramatically before sanctions and later stabilized as the government dismantled some of its own economic controls. The sanctions era itself demonstrated that Venezuela retained the ability to import consumer goods. Supermarkets gradually refilled for those able to pay. Construction cranes returned to Caracas’ wealthiest neighborhoods. Restaurants multiplied. Consumption recovered far more quickly than productive capacity.
The earthquake exposed the difference.
Disasters ask questions that ordinary economic life does not. They care little about how many imported products sit on supermarket shelves or how many luxury apartments are being built in eastern Caracas. They ask whether a country can mobilize excavators, engineers, trauma surgeons, logistics networks, emergency housing, electricity, financing and public institutions at scale. They ask whether resilience has been accumulated or consumed. Venezuela’s answer has been painfully clear.
That is perhaps one of the least understood legacies of chavismo. Much has been written about the destruction of wealth, the collapse of oil production or the country’s prolonged recession. Less attention has been paid to the destruction of resilience itself. For years, the Venezuelan State approached institutions with the same extractive logic that governed its relationship with oil. Productive assets became sources of immediate political or fiscal returns rather than investments to be maintained and strengthened. Private companies were expropriated rather than incorporated into development. Public enterprises became instruments of patronage rather than production. Infrastructure was consumed faster than it was repaired. The country did not merely become poorer. It gradually spent the reserves that societies rely upon when catastrophe arrives.
Resources that may have financed future growth must now finance immediate recovery.
The consequences extend far beyond physical infrastructure. Reconstruction is ultimately carried out by people, and Venezuela has spent the last two decades exporting many of those it now needs most. Engineers who now design highways in Spain, petroleum specialists managing fields in Texas or Guyana, architects working across Latin America, doctors practicing in Colombia and Chile, electricians, project managers and construction supervisors who left because opportunities disappeared at home. The Venezuelan diaspora contains an extraordinary concentration of precisely the human capital required to rebuild the country. Whether that expertise can be persuaded to return, even temporarily, remains an unlikely scenario.
Money presents an equally daunting challenge. Before the earthquake, Venezuela’s slow economic reopening had begun to attract cautious international interest. Much of it remained exactly that, cautious. Memoranda of understanding outnumbered signed investment agreements, access to financing remained limited and investors continued to price Venezuela’s political risks accordingly. The expectation, however tentative, was that new investment would increasingly flow toward rebuilding the electrical grid, expanding oil production and modernizing neglected infrastructure. The earthquake has fundamentally altered those priorities. Resources that may have financed future growth must now finance immediate recovery. Every home rebuilt is a home that cannot wait. Every hospital repaired is indispensable. Every bridge reconstructed delays another project that might otherwise have expanded productive capacity. Reconstruction does not replace development. It postpones it.
The financing challenge has also become more complicated politically. Investors had already approached Venezuela with understandable caution. The humanitarian emergency has increased the country’s fiscal needs precisely as political uncertainty has deepened. The constitutional arrangements established after Nicolás Maduro’s removal were always presented as exceptional. As they become more prolonged and their legal basis increasingly contested, companies considering long-term reconstruction projects must ask whether contracts signed today will remain secure under whatever government eventually succeeds the current one. Investors do not need constitutional certainty, they simply need enough legal certainty to believe that agreements lasting ten or twenty years will survive political change. Venezuela offers remarkably little of it.
This is also why Delcy Rodríguez’s recent call for the lifting of sanctions misunderstands the country’s central problem. Whatever benefits further sanctions relief might provide, it cannot eliminate the uncertainty surrounding Venezuela’s legal and political environment. Investors deciding whether to finance ports, housing developments or power plants are unlikely to base their decisions on sanctions alone. They also ask whether contracts will survive a change of government, whether courts will enforce them and whether today’s authorities will still possess the legal authority to honor them tomorrow.
Reconstruction depends on trust, functioning institutions, access to capital, legal certainty and a productive economy capable of sustaining the effort long after international solidarity inevitably fades.
There is another irony hidden beneath the rubble. The Venezuelan insurance industry will likely survive this catastrophe better than many expected, not because losses have been modest, but because so much of what was lost was never insured. This was an under-insured disaster. Homes, businesses and families that lacked coverage will inevitably look toward the state for assistance. Yet the state that spent years hollowing out its own fiscal and institutional capacity now finds itself acting as insurer of last resort, precisely when it possesses the fewest resources to fulfill that role.
Natural disasters often become moments of national renewal. Reconstruction can modernize infrastructure, attract investment and accelerate reforms that politics alone struggles to produce. Those opportunities exist in Venezuela as well. Rebuilding cities will require new housing, new roads, new power systems, new telecommunications infrastructure and new industries capable of supplying them. But opportunities are only as valuable as a country’s ability to seize them. Reconstruction depends on trust, functioning institutions, access to capital, legal certainty and a productive economy capable of sustaining the effort long after international solidarity inevitably fades.
The earthquake destroyed thousands of buildings. Rebuilding them will take years. What it ultimately revealed, however, is something far more difficult to reconstruct. Over the last quarter century Venezuela has steadily depleted much of the industrial, institutional, financial, human and political capital that countries quietly accumulate before disasters occur. Those invisible reserves are what determine whether recovery becomes a matter of years or generations. They cannot be imported as easily as food or medicine. They have to be rebuilt, patiently, one institution at a time.
Seventeen major institutions sign on to test around-the-clock liquidity and instant global value transfer.
Swift announced that its blockchain ledger is ready for initial use, enabling early adopter financial institutions to support cross-border payments around the clock using tokenized deposits.
The global cooperative, known for its vast messaging network used by banks to move money, called it a decisive step in scaling the benefits of digital value.
So far, 17 banks from six continents are preparing to pilot live transactions on the ledger. They include ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank Limited, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo. The shared ledger gives these participating banks a more secure layer for bank-issued tokenized deposits on their own ledgers, Swift argues.
Swift said banks stand to gain an improved client experience and greater global liquidity efficiency—even overnight and on weekends—without compromising existing compliance, credit, risk, and control standards.
It is the first use case for the ledger, which Swift announced last year and said it designed and built with feedback from international financial institutions in nine months. Swift said the development sets the stage for further innovation and interoperability on infrastructure, which it said is trusted to move the equivalent of world GDP every two to three days between more than 200 markets.
“With our new ledger capability, we’re extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money. It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects, while maintaining the same high levels of resiliency, security, and compliance global finance requires,” Thierry Chilosi, chief business officer at Swift, said in a prepared statement. “The strong support from banks shows the practical value of this approach — one that will help scale benefits globally while creating a foundation for future innovation in areas like programmable money and agentic commerce.”
Following its initial go-live phase, Swift plans to expand the ledger’s functionality and availability. This builds on its existing infrastructure, where 75% of network payments already reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes, or even seconds. The upgrades aim to help the industry meet Group of 20 international transaction targets.
Swift said it is also implementing a retail payments framework with its community aimed at ensuring upfront transparency on fees, full value delivery, and a faster, more consistent experience for consumers. Together with the ledger, Swift said, those upgrades lay the groundwork for value to move in any regulated form, anywhere, with high levels of security and resilience.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com
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AGCO (AGCO) up 2.2% in Friday’s trading as DA Davidson initiated coverage of the agricultural machinery manufacturer with a Buy rating and $160 price target, noting the company’s focus on Europe, where ag trends are moderately healthy even as sentiment surveys
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JPMorgan Chase (JPM) found that agentic AI models, tasked with asset allocation, can outperform the classic 60/40 model and the bank’s own rule-based market regime model, according to a recent research note written by J.P. Morgan’s cross-asset systematic strategy team.
Douglas Rissing
One president since Ulysses Grant in 1873 saw lower bond yields in each of their four consecutive presidential years, according to Bank of America.
Only William McKinley presided over four consecutive years of falling bond yields.
On the other hand, Woodrow
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Global oil demand will fall by one million barrels a day in 2026, the IEA said on Friday, making it the first annual contraction since 2020, when Covid lockdowns grounded aviation and shuttered industry.
The comparison flatters this year’s decline in one respect, since demand collapsed by around eight million barrels a day at the height of the pandemic, but it underlines how severely the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has damaged the global economy.
The contraction is “highly skewed in both product and regional terms”, the agency noted in its monthly report.
Earlier IEA analysis traced the sharpest losses to Asia’s import-dependent economies and to petrochemical feedstocks such as naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas, whose supply chains run through the Strait of Hormuz.
At the time of writing, the front month contract on Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at around $76 a barrel, roughly 6% higher than before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, and far below the peaks near $120 reached in March at the height of the conflict.
The US benchmark, WTI, was trading lower at around $72 a barrel.
Supply improved sharply last month, if from a desperately low base.
Global production jumped by 4.1 million barrels a day in June to 98.8 million as the partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz allowed Gulf producers to restart shut-in wells, though output was still running 9.4 million barrels a day beneath its pre-war level.
Gulf exports, counting cargoes rerouted around the strait, climbed by 6.5 million barrels a day to 16.1 million. Before the fighting began in late February, the region shipped an average of 24 million barrels.
Global oil inventories grew for the first time since US and Israeli strikes on Iran ignited the conflict, halting months of record drawdowns, although stockpiles in the wealthiest economies shrank further as buyers held back from importing.
The IEA’s forecasts rest on an assumption now under visible strain which is that a ceasefire holds and the Strait of Hormuz gradually reopens.
On that basis, global supply would contract by 3.7 million barrels a day this year, leaving production 860,000 barrels a day short of demand, before expanding by 7.5 million next year and tipping the market into surplus.
Stronger output elsewhere and weaker demand than expected before the war could still restore a surplus by the end of the year, allowing countries to rebuild depleted reserves, the IEA noted.
This week brought the second and far larger breach of last month’s truce.
After Iranian forces struck three commercial vessels on Monday and Tuesday, US Central Command hit more than 80 targets across Iran, including air defences, coastal radar and over 60 Revolutionary Guard small boats, while Washington revoked the licence permitting Iranian oil exports.
Iran fired drones and missiles at Bahrain and Kuwait, causing no major damage, and US President Donald Trump has since declared the ceasefire over.
Tehran insists the only safe passage is the route it sets in the Strait of Hormuz as traffic fell to 13 tankers on Wednesday, against an average of 33 a day the previous week, according to shipping data from Kpler.
Additional sources • AFP
Syria’s new central bank governor faces a daunting task: economic reconstruction.
Safwat Raslan, a former refugee who fled to Germany during his country’s 14-year civil war, is the new governor of the Central Bank of Syria. His first order of the day will be to standardize banking operations, expand Sharia-compliant banking products, and stabilize the Syrian pound to restore confidence in international markets.
The challenge is daunting.
The Assad regime, in power for more than 50 years before collapsing in 2024, left a hefty bill. The World Bank estimates direct physical damage to buildings and infrastructure from the Syrian conflict at $108 billion, with reconstruction costs of up to $345 billion.
Even though Western nations lifted most sanctions last year, Damascus is still in the early stages of reconnecting to the global financial system. Last year, the government executed its first international transfer via SWIFT since 2011. Still, Syrian banks remain relatively isolated, hampering efforts to attract outside capital.
Raslan’s appointment has generated both optimism and skepticism. Supporters see him as part of a new generation of internationally experienced professionals returning from the diaspora to help rebuild state institutions. A former branch manager at Byblos Bank Syria, he also worked for EY and Deutsche Bank in Germany. Returning home in 2025, he successfully led the newly created Syrian Development Fund. Critics, however, point to his limited monetary-policy résumé at a moment when credibility matters.
“The fact that there have been three central bank directors in two years underscores the difficulty Syria is having in stabilizing its currency,” says Joshua Landis, the Sandra Mackey chair and professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “The Syrian pound ranks as the world’s sixth-worst currency, and in the past year alone it has depreciated by 30% against the U.S. dollar, which is widely used as the currency of business.”
Real investments, Landis notes, have been scarce: “Oil is the one sector that seems to be getting some love. It provided roughly 40% of export earnings under Assad and will again be a major source of state income once it can be brought back up and running, but it needs massive investment.”
Having someone competent at the head of the central bank, Landis argues, will go a long way toward reassuring the business world: “Is Raslan that man? We will have to see.”
Luca Ventura is a contributing writer based in Italy.
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EasyJet said on Friday it had agreed in principle to Apollo Global Management’s cash offer of £7.15 a share, worth about £5.7 billion (€6.6bn), which the board judged a “superior outcome” for shareholders than the £6.90 a share tabled by US private equity firm Castlelake.
Having accepted Castlelake’s proposal only last Sunday, the Luton-based airline said it was “no longer minded to recommend” it.
Investors welcomed the auction as easyJet shares climbed around 15% to roughly £6.75 on Friday morning, their highest level since early 2022, though they remain below Apollo’s offer price.
The bid represents an 81% premium to the £3.94 at which easyJet closed on 28 May, the last trading day before Castlelake’s interest became public, a valuation that reflects how badly the airline had been beaten down.
The conflict between the US and Iran sent jet fuel prices soaring and disrupted travel plans, with easyJet’s shares losing more than a third of their value before the takeover interest emerged.
The damage showed in the accounts.
In May the airline reported a headline loss after tax of £377 million (€442mn) for the six months to the end of March, 27% deeper than a year earlier, even as revenue grew 12% to £3.95 billion (€4.6bn).
It warned that the second half of the financial year would also be hit by higher fuel costs and reduced visibility over bookings, though CEO Kenton Jarvis said easyJet was “well placed” to weather the turbulence.
Industry-wide, the International Air Transport Association warned last month that global airline profits are on course to halve this year.
The obstacle now facing both bidders sits in EU law, which requires airlines flying within the bloc to be majority-owned and effectively controlled by EU member states or qualifying European nationals.
Castlelake had proposed to satisfy the rule by partnering with two Irish aviation executives, Peter Bellew and Mark Breen, who would have held a controlling stake through an EU-based company.
Concern over such regulatory hurdles helps explain why easyJet’s shares have lagged the bid prices on offer. Apollo, for its part, says it will take “all necessary steps” to win merger clearance and any approvals relating to the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation.
Apollo has also promised to retain the easyJet name by extending the existing licence with easyGroup, the vehicle of founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who with his family owns roughly 15% of the airline and collects a royalty on its revenue.
That pledge may prove decisive in winning over the carrier’s most influential shareholder as neither offer is yet firm.
Under British takeover rules, Castlelake must decide by 3 August whether to bid or withdraw, with Apollo facing a deadline of 7 August.
Should a deal succeed, easyJet would leave the London Stock Exchange, joining the latest wave of British companies bought by foreign capital this year.
Additional sources • AFP
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Earnings Call Insights: WD-40 Company (WDFC) Q3 fiscal 2026
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“During March, we ran a recruiting special surrounding our March 14 Pi Day, which yielded better-than-expected results. We added over 1,300 new brand partners, which brought our Active Brand Partner numbers above
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Air Liquide (AIQUF) (AIQUY) said Thursday it plans to spend more than $200M to boost chemical production at partner Oxea’s site in Bay City, Texas.
The French industrial gases company said it will build a new partial-oxidation unit at the
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The European Commission launched an investigation on Thursday into Chinese Peking duck after several EU producers complained of unfairly low prices harming their industry.
Without disclosing their names, the Commission said that five EU producers had complained that China is unfairly subsidising domestic production via its five-year plan for agricultural modernisation.
The probe comes at a time of heightened tensions between Beijing and Brussels, as the EU seeks to shield its market from cheap Chinese imports, triggering Beijing’s ire as it aims to preserve access to the lucrative European market.
After China repeatedly threatened retaliation over several EU legislative proposals restricting access to EU public procurement and setting strict conditions on foreign investment, the two sides started negotiations last week to ease tensions.
However, the EU’s latest move targeting duck imports could disrupt the talks by hitting China’s agricultural sector for the first time.
It also said that the volume and prices of imports had a “negative impact on the quantities sold, the level of prices charged and market share held by the Union industry,” and that this had resulted in “substantial adverse effects on the overall performance” of the sector.
The Commission’s investigation could result in anti-dumping duties being imposed on Chinese producers to protect the EU market.
Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties are among the EU’s main trade defence instruments against China’s aggressive push into its market. However, EU leaders gave the Commission a mandate in June to step up efforts to reduce the EU’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with China. They want the EU executive, which has competence over trade policy, to review its trade defence tools and pursue a dialogue with Beijing that delivers tangible results.
EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Brussels last Monday to kick-start negotiations aimed at restoring a level playing field and addressing trade imbalances, which Brussels said had become “unsustainable”.
The EU already imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, triggering China’s investigations and sanctions targeting EU brandy, pork and dairy products.
The EU hopes to achieve a breakthrough in negotiations with Beijing by October, when Šefčovič is due to travel to China.
South Korean chipmaker SK hynix, known for its high-bandwidth memory chips, is preparing to raise roughly $28 billion (€24.5bn) on Wall Street, a sum surpassed only by SpaceX’s record flotation last month.
It is an extraordinary outcome for a firm that once survived on job cuts and asset sales.
Pricing is due on Thursday, with trading expected to begin on Friday under the ticker SKHY.
SK hynix is issuing 17.79 million new shares in the form of American depositary receipts (ADRs), each representing a tenth of a Seoul-listed share, and cornerstone investors including Baillie Gifford and funds run by Coatue Management have signalled interest in up to $7 billion (€6.1bn) worth of stock.
The target was trimmed from an initial $29.6 billion (€25.9bn) after the shares slipped in recent weeks.
ADRs are certificates traded on a US exchange that stand in for shares held abroad, letting American investors buy into a foreign company without dealing in a foreign currency or market.
Unlike a conventional flotation, this is not SK hynix’s stock market debut. Its primary listing remains on Seoul’s Kospi index, and the Nasdaq offering simply opens a second, dollar-denominated avenue for investors to gain exposure.
The listing arrives with the company already worth more than $1 trillion (€876bn), a threshold also crossed by rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron, after a surge of more than 200% this year.
Proceeds will fund new fabrication plants, chiefly a vast cluster in Yongin, plus its first US packaging facility in Indiana.
The move is partly about valuation. Korean-listed chipmakers have long traded at a discount to American peers, and a Nasdaq listing offers a chance to close that gap.
The AI build-out has transformed the industry’s economics.
As hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions into data centres, memory prices have exploded, with DRAM up 44% and NAND flash up 53% in a single quarter, according to Citi Research, and manufacturers have already sold most of their 2026 production.
SK hynix reported first-quarter revenue above 50 trillion won (€29bn) and operating margins north of 70%, figures unheard of for a chipmaker, and commands about 60% of the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, according to Counterpoint Research.
Yet the timing is delicate.
Memory has always been a brutally cyclical business. The AI-driven rally that transformed SK hynix has begun to wobble as chip stocks sold off sharply across Asia last week, and Samsung lost more than $100 billion (€87.5bn) in market value despite posting a record profit.
Investors are increasingly asking whether the vast sums being spent on AI infrastructure will earn a return, a question that the Bank for International Settlements raised in late June when it warned that the boom could seed the next financial crash.
Those concerns are not new for SK hynix.
SK hynix traces its roots to Gukdo Construction, founded in 1949, which moved into electronics in 1983 as Hyundai Electronics, an arm of the Hyundai empire.
The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s brought disaster. Under an IMF-backed restructuring of the Korean economy, Hyundai absorbed rival LG’s semiconductor business, creating a giant that promptly buckled under its own debts.
Salvation came in stages.
Renamed Hynix Semiconductor in 2001, a contraction of “high” and “electronics”, the firm cut jobs, shed assets and split from Hyundai. Profits returned, but the violent swings of the DRAM market left it perpetually exposed.
Starved of capital, it was rescued in 2012 by the telecoms conglomerate SK Group, becoming SK hynix. The takeover proved decisive. SK Group poured money into high-bandwidth memory, then a costly and unprofitable technology that few believed in.
Today it has become the scarcest commodity in AI computing. And the firm employs nearly 46,900 people.
Additional sources • AFP
Facing a 7% GDP contraction, the socialist island nation opens up to private banking and investment.
In June, the Cuban National Assembly unanimously passed 176 economic reforms aimed at staving off an economic crisis partly caused by U.S. sanctions.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced the reforms, which aim to reduce the state’s presence in the economy and attract foreign investment in agriculture, banking, and tourism. Officially, they are described as the most significant attempt to update the current state-socialist economic system.
“Times have changed, geopolitics have changed, and the United States’ aggression toward Cuba has changed,” President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez told the Dominican Republic’s Telenoticias. “We cannot remain the same; we must transform. These are times of transformation.”
A multitude of internal and external crises plagued the island economy during the first half of this year. Prolonged blackouts due to an electricity system in severe need of modernization, and chronic shortages of fuel and basic goods, partly caused by a U.S. oil blockade, top the list.
Economists project a 7% contraction in GDP for this year.
Faced with capital flight by foreign businesses due to U.S. sanctions, the Cuban government felt the pressure to change. Hotel chains, international commerce, and airlines had left Cuba, and in early June, the Central Bank of Cuba announced it could no longer accept Visa and Mastercard transactions.
The Cuban government grouped the 176 reform measures into 23 pillars. They include expanding the private sector by removing the 100-employee limit on companies.
Additionally, the reforms allow corporate and multi-ownership structures; reforming state-owned enterprises; authorizing private banks to enter the financial system; partially dollarizing the economy; transitioning from universal to targeted subsidies; facilitating foreign direct investment; and opening up foreign trade and real estate tourism.
“Today, our banking and financial system creates obstacles, hinders development, and does not facilitate investment, development, or agricultural production,” said Díaz-Canel.
Arguably, the measures represent the most significant changes to the economic system since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, dismantling longstanding state monopolies and allowing investors to acquire stakes in state-owned businesses.
No less a figure than Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of Fidel Castro, told The National, the United Arab Emirates’ English-language newspaper, “Our country must seek a path to economic development where we must inevitably diversify our economy, diversify the way we do business, and diversify the way we do investments.”
Nic Wirtz is a contributing writer based in Guatemala.
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In a draft regulation obtained by Euronews and due to be presented in September, the European Commission plans to tighten access to the EU market by allowing public authorities to exclude foreign companies that present risks of interference from public procurement.
The draft proposal comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions, with concerns over data leaks from sensitive public services to Beijing and Washington and as well as the weaponisation of the EU’s dependence on rare earths and technology products from China.
The draft document proposes that “public buyers shall take appropriate measures, where relevant at any stage of the procurement procedure, from planning and market consultation to contract award and execution, to ensure the protection of the security and public safety interests of the Union.”
The document adds that risks to security or public safety in a public contract may arise from firms whose “ownership, control, or financing structure” bears “risks of undue interference or influence over it,” as well as companies whose “exposure to third-country legislation […] may compel disclosure of sensitive information or interference with contract performance.”
Finally, public buyers would be allowed to introduce a European preference in public procurement, although the draft regulation would not make it compulsory.
Such provisions could confirm the EU’s protectionist shift towards a “Made in Europe” strategy, which the EU executive already proposed last March for strategic sectors such as clean technologies, the automotive industry and energy-intensive industries.
The risks of foreign interference and data transfer have become more acute in recent years, with the US and China both adopting legislation allowing them to request that companies under their jurisdiction transfer data stored in the EU.
Some European governments are already taking steps to mitigate these risks. In April, the French government ended its contract with Microsoft to protect French health data, and in June, it replaced US tech company Palantir with French company ChapsVision for the processing of sensitive information held by the the country’s domestic intelligence service, the Directorate General for Internal Security.
Over the last few years, several EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Denmark, have also cancelled or denied public contracts to the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei over security concerns.
The draft regulation also seeks to protect “critical infrastructure, critical supply chains, critical technologies or essential services, resilience against physical, cyber, or hybrid threats, and prevention and protection against risks of their disruption including due to harmful strategic dependencies on third-country suppliers.”
Last year, China cut off the EU from exports of rare earth minerals, which are essential for green technologies and the defence sector. It also stopped the Dutch-based Nexperia, owned by China’s Wingtech, from importing Chinese chips essential to the EU’s car industry.
Gig platforms offer seamless checkout for buyers, but emerging market payouts remain broken for workers.
In June 2026, member states from more than 180 countries convened for the International Labour Conference to determine international labor standards for digital platform workers. However, even with those standards set, payments remain a big issue.
Imagine a freelance developer in Lagos, who successfully completes a project for a client in London on Upwork. While the client’s payment is secured instantly, the developer faces a mandatory five-day security hold on their funds, followed by conversion to Naira at unfavorable rates, and fees of up to $20 per withdrawal, all eroding a significant portion of their earnings.
The gig economy has taken off like a rocket around the world, making up for 46% of the global workforce in 2025. Global projections state that it is set to increase to $2.52 trillion by 2035 from $674 billion in 2026. And it is expanding aggressively in the Global South. According to recent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) numbers, emerging markets have growth rates of roughly 21% in India, 17% in Egypt, and 16% in Argentina and Brazil.
Platforms such as Uber Inc. for drivers and Upwork for freelancers offer great opportunities for a second or even a primary income. However, while these companies provide seamless purchasing options for their services, they have largely not adapted their payout structures for workers in emerging markets.
Beyond the lack of stability and control that can come with side hustles, paying workers simply and on time remains a challenge for many gig economy platforms.
Funds get stuck between payer and recipient as they navigate local currencies across fragmented banking and mobile money ecosystems, compliantly and at speed. For all the sophistication of modern payment infrastructure, the last mile of the payout stack remains one of the most technically underserved problems in the industry.
Paying is harder than it looks. There are dozens of local currencies, many with volatile exchange rates and limited convertibility. To pay in a timely, consistent manner, platforms must have local liquidity ready to go, which can be cumbersome when applied globally. Compliance complexities, such as know your consumer (KYC) and AML requirements, vary by region, while worker classification and tax withholding obligations differ.
Additionally, many workers rely on being paid via mobile money such as M-Pesa in Africa, digital wallets, and cash-out networks rather than bank accounts, which have low penetration in some regions.
There are no dominant payout rails, meaning a platform operating in Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil, and Colombia is working with M-Pesa, bank transfers, PIX, and PSE simultaneously. Each comes with unique settlement times, failure rates, and reconciliation requirements. These issues result in delays, unfavorable exchange rates and high cash-out fees that are all absorbed by workers.
Beyond a minor inconvenience, these issues can mean not eating or paying rent for some who live day to day. As a result, workers switch to whichever platform pays fastest, while platforms face churn and risk their local reputations. Marginal inefficiencies, such as failed transaction fees, can add up significantly for platforms such as Rappi and Glovo, which process millions of transactions per week.
Regulatory pressure is also building. The ILC conference this month will determine standards for digital platform workers, including employment classification, pay transparency, and social protection.
Platforms are exploring multiple solutions for workers’ payment issues in emerging markets.
Aggregator models with multiple partners are one model that helps, but simultaneously increases operational overheads, with ongoing liquidity issues. Local wallets that are pre-funded require capital and incur high management costs, making them a barrier of entry for small to medium businesses. Earned wage access ensures workers are paid on time; however, it doesn’t resolve fees. Partnerships with local in-market banks provide faster settlements, with platforms owning compliance and currency conversions.
Single APIs may increase costs for platforms; however, they handle the complexities of local rails, currencies, payment methods, and compliance across multiple markets, making it seamless for platforms to pay workers with minimal overhead.
It can’t be denied that side jobs and flexible working are an attractive opportunity for many, particularly in emerging markets. However, delayed payouts for workers who live paycheck to paycheck is one practical aspect that impedes on a stable standard of living and erodes trust. Those looking to expand their billion-dollar businesses must ensure that the experience is seamless not only for the customer but for all parties involved.
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Carlos Menendez, chief operating officer of dLocal, is a seasoned general manager with extensive global experience in creating and scaling businesses. Prior to dLocal, he spent 14 years at Mastercard, most recently as president of the Global Commercialization Office, and 14 years at Citi, serving senior roles such as COO of Western Europe Retail Banking, EMEA Bankcards regional director, and CFO of Citibank USA. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University, an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.
Doucefleur
U.S. consumer credit fell by $0.188B in May, compared with the consensus expecting a $17.5B increase and a $20.82B increase in April (revised from $20.73B), according to data released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
Total consumer credit was essentially
