Latest news with #Europeancompanies
Russia Today
5 days ago
- Business
- Russia Today
European firms put data at risk with overreliance on US
Businesses in European countries allied with the US are heavily reliant on American digital services, leaving their data exposed to a range of strategic risks, according to a new report. More than 74% of all publicly listed European companies rely on American technology providers, the Swiss cloud company Proton said Tuesday. It stressed that in some countries, entire sectors are dependent on US services – including the French real estate market, the Spanish energy industry, and a large portion of the Irish economy. According to the report, US firms may use European data to train artificial intelligence models, share it with the US government, or halt services to European clients under geopolitical pressure. The study also warns that this dependence contributes to a talent drain from Europe and hampers domestic innovation. Europe outsourced its digital backbone for decades. Today, that choice has become a strategic new study shows how deep that dependency runs — starting with email, the gateway to every company's unpack it 👇1 / 8 Proton's findings are based on an analysis of the email domains used by companies across 31 European nations, not including Russia, which it claims reflect preference for other elements of the 'tech stack.' Only four countries were found to be less than 50% dependent on American providers. In contrast, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, and Finland each showed dependency levels exceeding 90%, according to the data. 'For decades, Europe turned to US tech instead of investing at home,' Proton stated. 'Today, that choice threatens its economic stability, cybersecurity, and democratic sovereignty.' The Swiss company promoted its own services as an alternative and voiced support for the European Union's EuroStack initiative. The project aims to develop sovereign digital capabilities, including chip manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, and AI systems.
Bloomberg
31-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Luxembourg Probes Possible Wrongdoing in China CO2 Credits
Luxembourg authorities are looking into possible wrongdoing tied to carbon-credit projects based in China that have been tapped by European companies to reduce their CO2 footprints. 'The Prosecutor General's office is currently investigating the matter,' a spokesperson at Luxembourg's ministry of environment, climate and biodiversity told Bloomberg, declining to comment further.
New York Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Doing Business in China Is Getting Harder, but Its Exports Are Hard to Resist
European companies, many of which have operated in China for decades, are finding it increasingly difficult to do business in the country, another sign of how China's weak domestic economy and opaque regulations are testing even longstanding multinational business ties. European automakers have been rapidly losing market share and face many political difficulties. Volkswagen agreed last December to sell its factory in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, where Beijing has repressed Muslim ethnic groups. European pharmaceutical and medical imaging equipment companies have found themselves locked out of much of the state-run health system. An extensive annual survey of businesses released on Wednesday by the European Chamber of Commerce in China found that nearly three-quarters said it was getting harder to operate in China. It was the fourth consecutive year that the survey showed deepening corporate pessimism. The proportion of European companies that plan to expand their operations in China has also fallen to a record low, with just 38 percent saying that they intend to do so this year. European investment has been important in bringing Western technology to China and in bringing Chinese products to world markets. The chamber, which has been gauging challenges companies face in China for a quarter century, represents the interests of some 1,700 companies, from industrial giants like VW to small businesses with a handful of employees who are cogs in global supply chains. The chamber's survey also unearthed a somewhat contradictory trend that could prove troublesome for President Trump's attempt to shield American manufacturing from China's exports with tariffs. Even as European businesses curb their own investments in China, some are also buying ever more components from Chinese companies. That makes their supply chains even more dependent on China. China has retaliated against Mr. Trump's tariffs by imposing its own tariffs on American goods. That has prompted a hunt by European companies in China for Chinese replacements for the few components they were still buying from the United States, said Jens Eskelund, the chamber's president. A broad fall in prices in China has made Chinese components too good a deal for many European companies to pass up. A recent weakening of China's currency against the euro has made Chinese components even more attractive. 'The one place where they actually get better components at a lower price than anywhere else in the world is here in China,' Mr. Eskelund said. Not only the United States, but the European Union and other countries have imposed tariffs lately in response to China's soaring exports of manufactured goods and tepid demand for imports. European companies that export from China to other markets had long feared possible trade barriers, but some were still caught off guard. 'That fear has turned into a nightmare for many at the moment,' said Klaus Zenkel, a businessman in Shenzhen who is a member of the chamber's South China chapter. Some companies have set up temporary assembly operations in other countries to bypass American tariffs, Mr. Zenkel said. They rent warehouses in places like Taiwan, do the final assembly of Chinese components in the warehouses and then ship the finished goods to the United States with customs declarations that no longer show the goods as coming from China. The Trump administration is trying to reduce these indirect shipments from China. Mr. Trump has threatened high tariffs against countries that run large trade surpluses with the United States. One category of business conditions has improved very markedly in China in the past year, according to the European chamber's survey. The share of European companies worried about rising wages has fallen steeply over the last several years, and these now rank among the least of their concerns. Labor costs had been rising along with China's surging housing prices. But that bubble burst in 2021, causing declines in construction that eliminated many jobs. In turn, flat or even falling wages have contributed to weak demand in China for everything from imported cosmetics to hotel rooms — resulting in broadly low prices, a potentially dangerous phenomenon known as deflation. 'By a wide margin, it is China's economic slowdown that is seen as having the greatest impact,' Mr. Eskelund said.
