By Arnout Nuijt 2014 EDITION – Ever heard of Uberlândia, Joinville, Ribeirão Preto, Sorocaba or Londrina? Well, you may soon, as they are among Brazil’s next generation of big business cities. No doubt the biggest and most important business centres of Brazil are still the megacities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Further afield,… Read More Brazil’s Next 10 Hottest Business Cities – 2014 Edition
By Arnout Nuijt Positive news about Brazil’s economy is hard to find these days. In fact the bad news is piling up. A recent report by the Financial Times of London, quoting Brazil Central bank figures, suggests the country has entered technical recession more than 7 months ago by shrinking slightly for two consecutive quarters… Read More Has Brazil really entered recession? Then here is what to do
The US, Germany, Poland and Mexico are among next year’s Best Countries for Business. Rotterdam Week in cooperation with Atlantico Business Development (an international consultancy based in Rotterdam) has selected the best 15 markets of 2014/15 for your direct investment or for exporting your products.
By Arnout Nuijt With less than six months to go, South Africa’s national elections already fuel many speculations. As I wrote earlier, the big game changer may be Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters. The EFF may grab up to 10% of the national vote (one poll put them even at 12%), mostly votes previously cast… Read More The Democratic Alliance and South Africa’s 2014 elections
By Arnout Nuijt It’s been months now since we saw a completely unpredicted, rare and wild explosion of mass demonstrations and protests against the authorities in Brazil. The protests were not aimed directly at Dilma’s present PT-led government, but at all parties, state governments as well as municipalities, in short Brazil’s corrupt and inefficient political… Read More As Brazil’s protests become a fading memory, the presidential campaign seems increasingly “old school”
By Arnout Nuijt Many, many years ago, he was “my first Mexican”, the diplomat who came to visit us at our office. He never knew it, but he taught me the risks of cultural profiling, the generalisations and assumptions we make of the world’s different cultures and their ways of doing business, aka intercultural communication.… Read More Intercultural communication? Just be yourself
Now and then Rotterdam Week will focus on historic innovative industries in the greater Rotterdam region. In a first of this series, we take a look at the Netam-L-Car. During the German occupation of the city, in 1941, the Netam company (aka NV Nederlandsche Tank-Apparaten en Machinefabriek “Netam”) developed a number of electrically propelled vehicles… Read More Once Made in Rotterdam: Netam electric vehicles
By Leo Beerden GADGET REPUBLIC Gadgets are gadgets because they are novelties, nice-to-haves, but essentially superfluous. Oh, really? They used to be anyway. But that was before we started carrying them around and trust them with our precious data. So what will happen once we’ll start wearing our gadgets while connecting them? Connected wearables will… Read More Wearable technology is coming and it is connected
By Arnout Nuijt Yes, Federal Chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU alliance won an astounding victory in Germany’s federal elections on Sunday September 22nd and that is exactly her problem now. Her party failed to win an absolute majority in the Bundestag by a narrow margin. Much worse, her preferred coalition partner, the liberal FDP, was… Read More Is Angela Merkel’s victory a pyrrhic one?
By Arnout Nuijt In April 2010 I visited the EBX head offices in Rio together with a couple of foreign business reps. They were both seasoned fellows, gentlemen who had been everywhere and seen it all. For reasons of discretion, let’s call them the Accountant and the Banker. We were curious about EBX, the expanding… Read More Mr Eike Batista’s incredible X-factor
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