Souveraineté industrielle accélérée

L’exécutif veut accélérer 150 projets stratégiques totalisant 71 milliards d’euros via simplification des permis et réduction des recours. Cette orientation favorise l’investissement industriel, mais accroît aussi les contentieux locaux, les arbitrages environnementaux et l’incertitude d’exécution.

Tech Investment Shifts Offshore

Dollar-funded technology firms are facing sharply higher shekel-denominated wage costs, with some executives saying Israeli engineers are now about 20% costlier in dollar terms. Companies are preserving management in Israel but shifting R&D, QA, and scaling roles to cheaper offshore markets.

Protectionist Pressures Increase Compliance

Taiwan’s export orders rose 65.9% in March, yet officials warn protectionist trade policies and U.S. investigations could weigh on future demand. Businesses should expect stricter rules on forced-labor screening, subsidies, tariffs, and origin compliance across Taiwan-linked supply chains.

Manufacturing Expands Amid Strain

Indonesia’s manufacturing PMI-BI rose to 52.03 in Q1 2026 from 51.86, with production, inventories, and orders expanding. However, employment contracted, indicating uneven industrial momentum. For investors, this suggests resilient domestic demand but continued pressure on labor markets, operating efficiency, and margin management.

Nickel Quotas Constrain Supply

Delayed 2026 RKAB mining approvals and tighter nickel output quotas are sustaining ore scarcity, while heavy rain and high humidity disrupt mining and shipping. Smelters are paying higher premiums to secure feedstock, raising procurement uncertainty and cost volatility for global metals and battery buyers.

External Accounts Remain Fragile

Despite stronger remittances, tourism, and FDI, Egypt’s external position remains vulnerable as current-account pressures persist, oil imports rise, and debt-service burdens stay heavy. Businesses should watch FX liquidity, payment conditions, and exposure to any renewed pound weakness.

Hormuz Shipping Disruption Risk

Iran’s restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz have cut traffic to roughly 5-20 vessels daily versus about 60-140 pre-crisis, stranding hundreds of ships, inflating war-risk premiums, and threatening energy, freight, and inventory planning across Europe and Asia.

Policy Capacity and Governance Strain

Wartime reviews exposed weak contingency planning in aviation, labor administration, and crisis coordination, while protests and political tensions persist. For international firms, this points to execution risk in permits, infrastructure delivery, emergency response, and regulatory consistency during periods of national security stress.

Energy Import Cost Surge

Egypt’s gas import burden has risen steeply as regional conflict lifted energy prices and import dependence. Monthly gas costs reportedly jumped by $1.1 billion to $1.65 billion, pressuring manufacturers, power supply planning, subsidy reform and hard-currency availability.

Payment Frictions and Financial Isolation

New EU measures target 20 more Russian banks, crypto platforms, RUBx and the digital rouble, deepening financial isolation. Cross-border settlements are increasingly routed through alternative channels, raising counterparty, sanctions, transaction-cost and payment-delay risks for companies serving Russia-adjacent trade corridors.

Energy Policy and Power Reliability

State-led energy policy and pressure on private participation continue to cloud investment conditions in electricity, gas, and industrial supply. For manufacturers, this creates risks around project approvals, power reliability, input costs, and the scalability of nearshoring-driven capacity expansion.

Tourism and Mega-Events Demand

Tourism is becoming a major commercial driver, with 123 million visitors and $81.1 billion in spending in 2025. Expo 2030, the 2034 FIFA World Cup, and new airport and hotel capacity will boost demand across aviation, hospitality, retail, logistics, and services.

Nearshoring Accelerates to Mexico

U.S. trade policy is accelerating nearshoring and regionalization, especially toward Mexico and North America. Logistics firms report rising cross-border demand, more use of bonded and Foreign Trade Zone facilities, and redesign of distribution networks as companies seek resilience against policy and sourcing shocks.

High Rates, Sticky Inflation

Brazil’s policy rate remains at 14.75%, while 2026 inflation expectations rose to 4.8%, above the 4.5% ceiling. Elevated borrowing costs are constraining investment, raising financing expenses, and pressuring consumer demand, freight, and pricing decisions across sectors.

Supply Chains Shift Toward Mexico

Tariff volatility is accelerating nearshoring into Mexico and wider North America. Logistics providers report more cross-border freight, diversified ports, bonded facilities, and modular networks, meaning companies must redesign inventory, routing, and distribution footprints rather than wait for policy clarity.

Energy Security and Transition

Saudi Arabia remains central to global energy markets while building renewables, hydrogen, and gas capacity. Renewable generation rose from 3 GW to 46 GW by 2025, but regional conflict and shipping chokepoints still create volatility for exporters, manufacturers, and energy-intensive industries.

South China Sea shipping tensions

Renewed friction in the South China Sea, including tighter Chinese control around disputed shoals, increases operational risk for maritime trade. Even without major conflict, insurers, shippers, and investors face elevated contingency costs, route uncertainty, and geopolitical risk premiums.

Structural Labor Shortage Intensifies

Labor scarcity, driven by mobilization, defense-sector absorption and emigration, has pushed unemployment near 2% and become a binding growth constraint. Businesses face wage inflation, limited hiring capacity and operational bottlenecks, especially in construction, services and industrial production across Russia’s civilian economy.

Freight and Logistics Cost Spike

War-related shipping and airfreight disruption pushed maritime and air rates up more than 40%, with SCFI rising 41.5% and US-bound air rates 47.8%. Exporters face longer routes, tighter capacity and margin pressure, prompting emergency logistics support for SMEs.

High-Tech FDI Surge

Vietnam is capturing supply-chain diversification and high-tech relocation, with annual FDI projected at US$38-40 billion over five years and about US$29 billion in 2026. Semiconductors, AI, digital infrastructure and electronics expansion strengthen export capacity but raise competition for talent, suppliers and policy certainty.

Inflation, Rates, and Peso Volatility

Banxico faces a difficult balancing act as growth deteriorates while inflation pressures persist in food and energy-linked categories. Expected rate cuts may support activity, but financing conditions, diesel costs, and exchange-rate swings still complicate budgeting and import planning.

North American Trade Rules Harden

Ahead of the July 1 USMCA review, Washington is signaling tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum may stay, while pushing stricter rules of origin. That shift challenges regional manufacturing economics, supplier qualification, customs planning and new investment decisions across North America.

EU Funding Conditionality Pressure

Ukraine’s financing increasingly depends on reform-linked EU, IMF, and World Bank disbursements. Delays in procurement, tax, anti-corruption, and governance legislation risk slowing billions in external funding, with direct implications for sovereign liquidity, payment reliability, and the broader business climate.

Energy-Linked Trade Structuring

Energy is becoming a central lever in India’s external economic negotiations, especially with the US, where India has indicated possible purchases worth $500 billion over five years. That could affect commodity sourcing, shipping flows, trade balances and long-term industrial input costs.

US-China Strategic Frictions Deepen

Commercial relations with China remain constrained by unresolved disputes over tariffs, export controls, rare earths, technology access, and Iran-related tensions. This raises exposure for firms dependent on Chinese inputs, cross-border e-commerce, semiconductors, and politically sensitive supply chains serving both markets.

Energy Grid Access and Expansion

Brazil introduced new rules for transmission-grid access as connection demand rises from renewables, low-carbon hydrogen, and data centers. Expanded substations and upcoming auctions support industrial growth, but competitive access processes and permitting bottlenecks may delay power-intensive investments.

Chabahar Uncertainty Alters Corridors

The expiry of US sanctions relief is clouding India’s role in Chabahar, a strategic gateway to Afghanistan, Central Asia and the INSTC. Potential stake transfers and legal restructuring create uncertainty for traders, logistics planners and infrastructure investors using the corridor.

Tax Reform Transition Risk

Brazil’s consumption tax overhaul is entering implementation, replacing PIS, Cofins and IPI with CBS, while uncertainty persists over effective rates, exemptions, and compliance. Companies face transition costs, pricing adjustments, ERP redesign, and temporary disruption to investment and supply-chain planning.

State-backed battery supply chain

France is accelerating EV industrial policy through lithium mining, cathode materials, and component investments. Imerys targets 34,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide annually from 2030, while tax credits and fast-tracked permits support battery manufacturing localization and supply security.

External Vulnerability And Reserve Risks

Pakistan’s recovery remains fragile because imported energy dependence, thin reserves, and conditional external support leave it exposed to oil shocks. Foreign reserves were about $15.8 billion in late April, but downside scenarios point to renewed balance-of-payments stress, payment delays, and exchange-rate pressure.

Labor Shortages Delay Projects

Construction and infrastructure are constrained by severe labor shortages after Palestinian worker access was halted. Officials cited failures to bring in up to 100,000 foreign workers, while the sector still reportedly lacked around 37,000 workers, delaying housing, transport projects and related supply chains.

US Pressure on Manufacturing Relocation

Washington is offering tariff relief to Canadian steel and aluminum firms if they shift production south, intensifying pressure on Canada’s industrial base. The policy raises plant-closure and layoffs risks, while forcing companies to reassess footprint, capital allocation, and supply-chain resilience.

Regional Gas Trade Gains Importance

Israeli gas remains strategically important for Egypt and Jordan, with Egypt expecting imports from Israel to rise 21% in May to 32.56 million cubic meters daily. This supports regional energy trade, but also ties export revenues to geopolitical stability and infrastructure resilience.

Middle East Energy Shock

Conflict-linked disruption around Hormuz is raising oil and LNG costs for an economy importing over 80% of its energy. OECD cut Korea’s 2026 growth forecast to 1.7% from 2.1%, while refiners, petrochemicals, steel and transport face higher operating costs.

Financial Isolation and Payment Frictions

Transaction bans on 20 more Russian banks, crypto-service prohibitions and constraints on the digital rouble are deepening payment fragmentation. Businesses trading with Russia face greater settlement delays, reduced banking options, higher intermediary costs and growing difficulty repatriating funds or structuring compliant transactions.

PIF-Led Megaproject Execution

The Public Investment Fund remains central to domestic investment, with assets around SR3.41 trillion and focus on tourism, manufacturing, logistics, clean energy, and urban development. Megaproject execution is generating large contract flows, but concentration risk and timeline adjustments remain important considerations.