Venture capital funding has reached record levels in recent years, enabling start-ups to expand across borders – but their ability to do this depends on their type of business, and where they are founded.

Poland’s Wrocław has turned in a stellar performance in fDi’s Return on Investment study, landing the city the top slot in the Return on Budget and Return on Personnel Investment categories. 

Up to 18 countries across Latin America have joined China’s new Belt and Road Initiative, hoping to boost their infrastructure development and investment.  

Pedro Calado, vice-president of Madeira’s regional government, tells Sebastian Shehadi about the island's capacity for more upmarket tourism and its ongoing struggle to gain financial independence from Portugal. 

The chairman of the board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus talks to fDi about preserving financial stability and diversifying the country’s export split.

The minister of foreign affairs for Belarus tells fDi why the country is keen to join the WTO and strengthen economic relations with the CIS.

When Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, took the baton from ‘leader of the nation’ Nursultan Nazarbayev, he pledged stability and continuity, as well as new approaches to succeed where previous policies have struggled to gain traction. Jacopo Dettoni reports on the progress so far. 

With a multilingual population, Antwerp enjoys a diverse talent pool that has made it a popular testbed for digital innovation and entrepreneurship.

Antwerp has long been an attractive retail location in Belgium, while also offering investors an efficient and transparent planning process. 

Lisbon’s mayor discusses the city’s tech strengths and its solutions to business challenges, such as affordable housing.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has attracted praise for launching a climate-resilience bond to help finance environmental projects.

Quebec hopes a major maritime strategy that includes constructing a container port and building naval vessels will boost its economy by creating jobs and attracting investment.

Project numbers drop almost 40% between 2017 and 2018.

Europe’s most well-known digital disruptor banks have been expanding across the globe, but not without some controversy. Alex Irwin-Hunt reports.

Investment into the Middle East region by US-based companies showed a notable increase between the beginning fo 2016 and the end of 2018. 

Dubai outstrips other Middle East cities as top destination for office openings.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), U.S. electrical generating capacity by renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) has now - for the first time - surpassed that of coal.

German utility EnBW has acquired French wind and solar developer and operator VALECO.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has inaugurated the 69-MW San Jose II Hydroelectric Power Plant in the municipality of Colomi, department of Cochabamba.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) said that is has begun operation of its electric thermal energy storage system (ETES), a milestone in the development of energy storage solutions, according to the company.

Sweden’s ambitious plan to drastically cut emissions from transport by bringing millions of electric cars onto the road could be derailed by a lack of power capacity for new charging stations in major cities.

On Wednesday in New Jersey, the world’s largest regional theme park company and the largest operator of waterparks in North America said that its New Jersey park, Six Flags Great Adventure, is now powered by solar energy.

On June 12, Target corporation said it was increasing its renewable energy goals by committing to source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The goal applies to all of Target’s domestic operations.

Today, solar power has become cheaper than the production cost of any other existing conventional power generation technology. The arrival of grid parity heralds a milestone in the history of energy production. It means solar energy being commercially viable without any subsidies or state support; producing energy with the lowest possible environmental impact.

Natron Energy said that the California Energy Commission (CEC) awarded it a $3 million grant for “Advanced Energy Storage for Electric Vehicle Charging Support.” Natron will use the money to manufacture and install a high powered, long cycle life energy storage system at an EV Fast Charging station.

Iowa economic development officials are tentatively endorsing a tax credit for battery storage to complement the state’s wind and solar generation.

Eleven million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018 according to the latest analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The 122.4-MW Bicentennial Wind Farm has been inaugurated in the Santa Cruz province of Argentina and is currently the largest wind farm in the country, according to BNamericas.

Hydrogen, which has been touted as the fuel of the future much of the past five decades, may finally be on the verge of converting its potential to reality.

In early June, the UK enshrined into law a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, making Britain the first major economy to do so. Meeting this target will require substantial reliance on renewable energy from solar, tidal, hydro, and wind sources, both onshore and offshore.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Angus King (I-Maine), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), have reintroduced The Marine Energy Research and Development Act, intended to increase production of low-carbon, renewable energy from the natural power in ocean waves, tides and currents.

New York is poised to pass its own version of the Green New Deal with a climate bill that would more than triple the state’s solar capacity and aggressively promote development of wind farms off the state’s coast.

Go Electric Inc. is a specialist in energy resiliency solutions for microgrids and commercial & industrial customers integrating renewables and generators

Wind or solar now represent the least expensive option for adding new power generation capacity in approximately two-thirds of the world.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule and simultaneously repealed the Clean Power Plan (CPP).

While the industry is welcoming more women leaders, its rank-and-file workforce is still a lot like those at fossil-fuel companies: white and dominated by men. The lack of gender diversity is being driven by manufacturing jobs, and that means women are now missing out on the biggest jobs boom America has to offer.

The Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week announced that it has launched the world’s first public, open-source, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector: the Energy Web Chain (EW Chain). As a refresher, blockchain allows for peer-to-peer energy market transactions.

Vermont joined the ranks of other New England states that provide incentives for electric vehicles with Gov. Phil Scott’s signature on June 14 on a yearly transportation bill.

Nigerian distributed utility company, Arnergy, announced it has raised $9 Million in a Series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), EDFI ElectriFI and All On.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it would invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to expand its data center infrastructure in the Netherlands.

Here’s the latest wrinkle in the battery boom: National Grid Plc is paying consumers to tap electricity from their power-storage systems.

8minute Solar Energy, NV Energy and the Moapa Band of Paiutes announced that NV Energy selected 8minute to develop the largest solar plus storage project ever built in Nevada and one of the largest in the world.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the twin forces of privatization and deregulation of public infrastructure services ascended to a global paradigm of progress and development. Government management of services such as telecommunications, transportation, water, and energy was deemed inefficient, underperforming, and monopolistic. Private industry – accountable to the profits and losses of an open market and, thus, believed more efficient than government – was proclaimed the better way for consumer choice and a more efficient use of taxpayers’ expenses.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has entered into an agreement to acquire Cube Hydro, an operator of small and medium-sized hydropower facilities in the northeast and southeast U.S.

POWERGEN International Week truly begins Monday, Nov. 18 with POWERGEN University. This year’s set of three, four and eight-hour PGU classes include detail educations on crucial power generation topics such as effective project management, gas turbine long-term service agreements, safety processes, digitalization, business plans for emerging markets, microgrids, cogeneration, machine learning, boiler technologies, building the generation fleet of the future and the consideration of natural gas vs. diesel for on-site power gen-sets.

This week the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) launched the first edition of its Global Offshore Wind Report, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the prospects for the global offshore wind market, including forecast data, market-level analysis and review of efforts to lower costs.

Yesterday, ENGIE Storage announced that San Diego International Airport (SAN) installed a 2 MW/4 MWh GridSynergy energy storage system. Paired with the airport’s existing 5.5 MW of solar capacity, the new energy storage system will reduce energy charges during peak demand, which according to ENGIE equate to approximately 40 percent of the airport’s monthly electricity costs. The system is expected to begin operation in early 2020.

A series of U.S. renewable energy incentives violated international trade rules, according to the World Trade Organization, threatening to stoke tensions between the two countries as President Donald Trump prepares to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

BlackRock Real Assets is aiming to boost its renewables power portfolio in Asia by as much as 10-fold as it seeks to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing region for green energy.

Solar Foundation and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) are joining the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), several national residential solar companies, and other nonprofit organizations to develop new automated permit software for distributed solar and storage, reducing the cost of solar installations and saving resources for local governments and taxpayers.