For decades, China’s natural gas sector has been dominated by three state-owned enterprise groups – China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). The three majors together owned up to 84% of the national long-distance gas transmission pipelines at the end of 2017. In response to the government’s call for SOE reform, initiated in the 1990s, the three giants have established their own listed arms, restructured business units for better asset integration, and introduced market entities to participate in oil field management. The Chinese government has also encouraged independent domestic players as well as foreign companies to enter the sector.

In 2018, the performance of the coal sector in China improved, which was attributed to a number of factors, such as favourable domestic economic conditions, the ongoing supply-side reform and coal industry consolidation. In addition, there was high market demand from the steel sector, increased power consumption and a recovery in thermal power generation. These market conditions stimulated growth in coal prices, which although hiked to USD 120 per tonne on international markets in July 2018, remained at healthy levels. The stronger performance of China’s coal sector in 2018 was also a result of improved balance between supply and demand, supported by implementation of the government’s regulatory measures on coal pricing and import volumes throughout 2018. The production efficiency and profitability in the sector increased. The revenue of the major coal mining enterprises rose by 5.5% y/y to RMB 2.3tn, according to China National Coal Association, while their profit increased by 5.2% y/y to RMB 288.8bn. The number of coal mining enterprises rose to 4,505, up from 4,435 in 2017, while the number of coal mines was cut to 3,373, down from 3,907 in 2017. The average annual production capacity expanded to about 920,000 tonnes.

The coal mining industry in China has been undergoing an intense consolidation process, which has resulted in a decreasing number of small inefficient businesses and a growing number of large coal enterprises. Due to their extensive scale of operations and big market shares, SOEs are the sector’s main revenue generators. In 2018, the country’s top ten coal producers generated over 34.6% of the total revenue of coal mining, up from the 27.1% share in 2017. The government’s industry reforms envisage further consolidation of the mining sector, which is likely to intensify the M&A activity. In order to boost their profits along the value chain, coal producers are expected to further expand their presence into segments such as syngas, olefins and liquid fuels, as well as coal-to-oil conversion. They will also work on diversifying their business scope with renewable energy development, power generation and transportation.

In 2017 and 2018 the wood and paper sector recuperated from the crisis of the 2014-2015 period and this recovery intensified the consolidation of the sector. Momentum was also increased by high pulp prices on the international market in 2017 and 2018, which stimulated the appetite of large foreign players for entering Brazil or expanding their existing capacities, lured by the competitive advantages that the country holds in this particular sector – such as favourable climatic conditions and high forest productivity.

After the liberalisation of the metal processing sector in the 1990s, it opened itself to foreign capital and the level of competition increased. However, today the iron and steel manufacturing and the processing of non-ferrous metals continues to be dominated by a limited number of large domestic groups, with only a few foreign participants. According to the Sao Paulo-based consultancy Falke Information, as of end-2018, the five largest groups represented more than 85% of the country’s steel production installed capacity. On the other hand, the manufacturing of metal products is characterised by a high level of competition.

Brazil’s insurance sector features medium-to-high concentration, with local integrated financial institutions being the market leaders in most segments. The economic recovery in the country since 2017, coupled with the relatively low level of penetration of insurance products and the liberalisation of the reinsurance segment, have increased the interest of both domestic and foreign investors towards the market, materialising in the entry of new players and the expansion of operations of existing insurance companies, mainly in underserved segments such as property and casualty and supplementary health insurance, thus increasing overall competition in the sector.

Due to technological advancements across different industries, the demand for colocation and managed services is increasing globally. Colocation, managed services, interconnection, and cloud connectivity solutions are offered by data center service providers. The demand for colocation services, therefore, increases the investments in data centers. The construction, however, is carried out with at least 50% of the space pre-leased under development projects. Pre-leasing 80% of the space is also leading to the continuous expansion of projects. While colocating data centers could decrease CAPEX and OPEX, operating through green facilities, the ability to operate high-density IT infrastructure, hybrid infrastructure services, edge locations, and high bandwidth leads to decreased latency. Sectors such as BFSI, cloud service providers, telecommunication service providers, media and entertainment, and government agencies dominate collocating spaces across the globe.

Data centers are being built in response to growing customer demand. However, factors such as power, water resources, favorable free cooling conditions, fiber connectivity, and availability of skilled labor are considered for selecting areas for the development and operation of data centers. The high availability of service offerings is enabled by building Tier III and Tier IV standard modern data centers. Cooling systems consume around 40% of the power in data centers. This is prompting operators to select areas that support free cooling. Also, data centers consume millions of gallons of water to cool the facility. In areas that don’t support free cooling, the abundance of water is required. The major site selection criteria for data centers are mentioned in the table below, along with the identified level of importance for each criterion and description of the same.

Support for data center development from the government is high in the US. Over 30 states are providing tax incentives for data center development in the US. It also includes land for development and supportive utility power supply.

The Latin American countries have been attracting foreign glass bottle makers and other companies, owing to the factors like rich natural resources, low-cost labor, and increasing consumer expenditure. Although the economic growth rate of some of the regions, like Argentina, have not been very encouraging, the regions such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico witnessed positive growth rates. The improving economy made the regions the major consumers of packed food and beverage, personal care goods, and even electronics. The demand mostly came from the urban population, which constitutes 81% of the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean. Consider the case of Brazil for instance, Brazil’s middle-class prosperity is second only to China, with more than 15 to 17 million households forecasted to break through the middle-class income limit by 2021.