On July 3rd the Saudi government issued a decree stating that preferential market access under the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) tariff agreements would no longer apply to goods coming from free zones or those including any Israeli input.

As Latin America (LATAM) experiences a shift towards decentralised IVD testing and greater constraints on fiscal budgets and healthcare systems, IVD companies will have to adapt their market strategy to meet the region’s increased demand for affordable point-of-care (POC) tests, particularly around infectious diseases. EIU Healthcare estimates the POC diagnostics market to grow by 5.6% annually on average during the 2019-2024 forecast period.

Although the demand for healthcare workers rose due to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of foreign-trained doctors and nurses migrating to many OECD countries has either fallen or stagnated in 2020. This may partly reflect travel bans.

On July 9th the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM, the country’s leading car industry association) reported that car production and sales fell by 16.5% and 12.4% respectively year on year in June.

Despite differing political systems and levels of development, a clutch of major Asian economies— including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam—have each backed policies aimed at eliminating Covid‑19, rather than living with it.

The Economist Intelligence Unit expects strong growth in world commodity prices in both 2021 and 2022, notably for industrial metals, precious metals and energy—the top exports for the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

In The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) latest global outlook video, Agathe Demarais, Cailin Birch and Adnane Allouaji discuss The EIU’s latest oil price forecasts and their implications for Middle Eastern countries.

Trade along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues to increase, despite ongoing Covid‑19 waves, with China’s exports of electronics and furniture benefiting from the work-at-home trend.

Global sustainable investment in five major markets—Europe, US, Canada, Australasia and Japan—grew by 15% in 2018-20 and reached US$35.3trn at the beginning of 2020, according to a biennial report released by Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA), a network of sustainable investment representative organisations, in July.

The latest data show that the jobs recovery in Latin America is lagging the overall economic recovery as the coronavirus (Covid‑19) pandemic continues to hinder fully-fledged economic normalisation.