Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. According to reports last month, Argentina is planning to increase its annual space program budget to $180 million through 2027 in order to develop and launch low-orbit satellites used for earth observation. In an email interview, Pablo de León, an associate professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, discusses Argentina’s space program. WPR: What are Argentina’s space capabilities, in terms of its domestic public and private space-industrial complex, and who are its major international [...]
Argentine President Mauricio Macri was in Brussels earlier this month to push the European Union on finalizing a free trade agreement with the South American trade bloc Mercosur. In an email interview, Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, a professor of economics at the University of Goettingen, discusses the state of the free trade negotiations between the EU and Mercosur. WPR: How extensive are trade and political ties between the EU and Mercosur, and what is standing the way of a free trade agreement between them? Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso: Mercosur—and especially Brazil, Mercosur’s largest economy—is an important market for EU goods and services. The main [...]
In late 2013, in a highly publicized address to the Chinese Communist Party’s plenum, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that his newly elected government would unleash the private sector after decades of gradual economic reforms that left many of China’s biggest industries in the hands of state-owned giants. Market forces, rather than the state, would now play a “decisive role” in the Chinese economy, Xi declared, a line touted by Chinese and foreign media. The declaration represented a major shift: State-owned enterprises consumed the majority of lending from China’s four big banks, and dominate the list of the largest corporations [...]
