Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast. Well our backdrop this week gridlock in New York City. Yes, that was definitely going on this as the eightieth Annual UN General Assembly was in session, coinciding with New York City's annual Climate Week summit. President Trump gave his first UN speech of his second term as president, a sailing the World Body in other countries of offering nothing but
empty words and labeling climate change a con job. With Thatlobal Leaders in Town, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropy is both founded by Michael R. Bloomberg hosted the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum, where we did a live broadcast.
Over the next two hours, we will bring you some of our conversations and highlights from the event. These are discussions focused on innovation and opportunity in the climate space, as well as we're funding for global climate change initiatives is coming from and how it all fits into the state of the global economy. On that a lineup of
European leaders from government to banking. We also talk AI data centers and the growing partnerships in the space with the former head of strategic partnerships at OpenAI.
And then a little later on Bloomberg News editor in chief John mcklethwaite sits down with the Prime Minister of Spain. First up this hour, I'll look into the global consumer, the US consumer, and what big multinational companies are prioritizing in this new age of tariffs. We do that by checking in with the world's largest retailer. We are, of course talking about Walmart. A member of the company c
suite joined us at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum. Chris Nicholas is president and CEO of Sam's Club, wal Mart's membership only retail warehouse club, mostly with clubs in the US, but also overseas in Mexico, China, and Brazil.
What we're seeing at Sam's Club is consumers that are consistent and rational. You know, I've been in retail for more than thirty years now, and I've never known a time when people don't love great items at great prices. And as long as you're giving people that, we're finding consumers really you know, rational and consistent.
What is their behavior though right now? Because that's something Carol and I were talking a lot about, you know, the whole idea of are they buying what they typically buy, are they buying what they buy at a certain point in economic cycle, are they trading up, are they trading down? What are they doing in your stores?
Yeah, it's interesting with I mean, consistent would be the word i'd use. People are still buying general merchandise from US. I mean, we talked in our last quarter at the results about general merchandise sales having another quarter of positive comp But what's really interesting within that is that the units are moving faster than the items, which means that, you know, we're still giving them great value. And I think people are really moving to appreciate when they're getting
good value. You know, the club warehouse model is made for times like these. I would say it's a good time to be in the club model. We've got in our clubs. We've only got four thousand items. And the way that the club model works, just to level set us is our job is to make almost nothing on what we sell. We're just about break even and we make all our money from membership. So the lower you can operate in terms of costs, the lower you can keep prices. And when that happens, people are more loyal,
they renew more often, and you get more members. So we're in this like really special moment right now where people are love the great value that we've got and they love the great items that we've got to you know, I want.
To cross that with what we just heard from Freedsherman J. Powe in terms of the decision and kind of basically saying the FA's not in a great place, like either way, there are some risks to the employment picture, their concerns still about inflation. So this is there's kind of risks to both sides of the equation and concerned about monetary policy that it's hard to do right now in this environment. So that to me sounds uncertain, unsure, But it doesn't sound like you're saying any of that.
Look, the club we have this position where there's only, I mean between us and our main competitors in the club model in particular, we're only like six and a half percent of the total retail market, and we would definitely from a club point of view, our consumers definitely skew sort of more wealthy, you know, bigger basket sizes, but we do serve everybody, and we don't see a great delta between different income cohorts.
You don't know, all right, that's more generations. When you think about kind of the environment, whichally when it comes into tariffs in terms of pricing, how do you kind of figure out where you can maybe raise prices where you can.
It's such a great it's such a great question. And again not to sort of pivot, but one of the powers of the club model is because you've only got four thousand items in the club, those items are curated and our merchants, they are true professionals that, like many of them, have been in their jobs decades and they understand the value chain from end to end better than anybody, and so they get the ability to choose what's in the club, but they also get the ability to work
through where the inefficiencies are in the supply chain. They've got deep relationship with the suppliers, so you work through where the opportunities are between the suppliers too. So I'll give you an example our roses that we buy from Ecuador. The costs went up because you know, the tariff environment changed, and so our merchants worked through with the supplier like what could we do? So we move them in different
ways so we have less packaging. We wrap them in the US now instead of where we used to wrap them. And so you do things like that that help you to manage the input costs. That means you don't have to pass it on to the consumer. And our job is to work through how little you pass through, and you work through how late you do it. So we'd always like to be last last up.
But we we have the.
Ultimate opportunity in the club channel, and that is that we have choice because we don't have to sell everything, so we the curation actually is a superpower for us.
Does that mean you haven't raised prices on anything?
No, No, we see there are certain things that where prices move all of the time anyway, So produce would be a good example of that, and there.
Are some terrff for later.
Yeah, what I would say to you is that if I think about general merchandise, would be the which is like all of the electronics and apparel and all of those things.
The stuff that I have way too much in my home.
There's never enough, buy more.
But in terms of teriffs particularly putting pressure on pricing.
Yeah, So what we see is in terms of what people are buying. I think I mentioned this, but the growth in the units that we've had is outpacing our
comps in general merchandise. So if you think about like over the last few years, you had like pack goods through COVID became more expensive and they never really came down, whereas general merchandise they We had the supply chain disruption, you remember that, and the general merchandise inflated and then it deflated rapidly as is after all of the supply chain disruptions disappeared, and at the end of last quarter we were still in a period of slight deflation in
general merchandise. So prices move all of the time. Our job and our merchant's job is to make sure that we give people access to the price points they want and the value that they want. Maybe it's worth mentioning but in Sam's Club, like, we're twenty five percent cheaper than retail in general. So as we resist putting prices up because that's in our DNA, We're always going to be more price competitive than everybody else.
So then you haven't raised any prices related to terror.
We will.
We will be the last people to put prices up. And some prices have gone up, but in the mix, I'm telling it so for sure. I mean, we we have input price changes in some items, and some come through already and some is still to come through. But I would tell you that our job is not to lead with putting prices up, and all of our sales growth in Sam's Club is through unit growth, not inflation.
Okay, cool, I'm wondering what you're hearing from your team who's out there talking to the producers, the American producers of things we grow, produce beef as well. We had a Bloomberg News story last week about farmers and a toll that the Trump administration policies are taking on farmers right now. Immigration just one of them. Tariffs on soybeans are another one. As a result of fewer less interest
from China and Chinese buyers. What are you hearing though, on the immigration front, because in some cases forty percent of migrant workers are from outside forty percent of farm workers rather are migrant workers, So they're coming from outside the US, and that's a challenge for farmers to actually find those employees. Right now, what are you hearing from them?
Yeah, I'm not hearing anything to add or to offer on that topic. I would tell you that we have brilliant farmer partners. We understand the value change really well, and we have no in stock issues or cost price issues.
So have they raised prices at all on American produce?
You'd have to ask somebody else about the through line on like employment and pricing preases. I think you probably speak to lots of people are better informant.
What about from produce that comes outside of the United States? I mean, we can't do everything here. We can't grow bananas, we can't grow other avocados. Yeah, the tomatoes when they're out of season come from outside of the US. What does that look like?
We definitely over index on US beef. The vast majority of what we buy is US, the vast majority, and and so you know, but we have choices about where we buy from this is the benefit of being this curated, limited assortment retailer is that we get the choices to buy from the places that where you give the consumers great value and great quality, which we're never going to
relent on. But you know, yeah, we buy items, you know, buy avocados as you said, from abroad, and many other items, tomatoes when it's out of season, and you know the quality and the value. That will never relent on the quality. But if the input costs increase, and the input's costs will increase. But there's produce. There are so many variables produce and beef. I mean that there are so many variables that pushes the costs down as well as up.
So I think it's a super complex situation. And I think that our farmers are some of the best in the world, and I think that our merchants know how to work with the farmers. The thing, the best thing you can do for those farmers is to give them great forecasts, allow them to grow to those forecasts, and give them good prices that allow them to understandable business models. And we do a really good job of that.
Chris, you guys in retail, I'm sure we're you know, even late to talk about the holiday season and the upcoming holiday season when you think about assortment and what you want to have inventory for consumers, how's it looking for this year? Is it going to be a lot different from last year? Are the supply channel there to get what you need and what you want for your consumers?
Yeah, that's not an issue. We don't see any issues with supply chain management in that way. A Sam's Club in particular, we get really early. Is you guys, are Sam's Club now, which hopefully you know, please do You'll see it's full of Christmas.
I know it tries to be a little crazy. Yeah, I mean, if I understand, is it so? I mean Halloween hasn't even happened.
Yeah, Well, in the club channel, people like to be prepared, So we get into a season early and then we exit early. And that's the kind of scarcity is part of the value that we create and so so we're not worried about it from a Sam's Club point of view. But the thing I would say is that people just love to celebrate, they love to buy, they love the seasons, and so I think you'll find that certainly at Sam's Club.
People whether it's the general merchandise they buy pre Thanksgiving and Christmas, or the food that they buy for the season. A long as you're giving them great value, they're going to come to you and people will find a way to celebrate.
One of the things we love about the Global Business Form is we tackle everything climate change, you know, workforce, employment, economics, politics. As a leader who's been at a company for a long time and I'm sure looking at everything that's going on, what's top of mind for you and an environment where this pushback against certain initiatives, there's a lot of political
things going on, geopolitics. I'm just curious, you know, in running what you guys do, and I know you're kind of a well oiled machine in many ways, but I'm just curious.
Yeah, I think, you know, in the in an environment of change, and by the way, I like, changes are constant and you've got to love it. Then. I've always found that the best thing to do is to focus on what you can control. And what you can control is the culture you create as a business, how you work with and treat your customers and your members, the experiences that you create.
You know.
A great example is the e commerce business We've just launched express delivery from our clubs and people love it and they're opting in.
Does the price change with delivery?
No, we have price parity. We have price so others don't. We do, So we have price parity between clubs and an online that's really important from a trust point of view. And people are thanking us for our delivery from club food and non food is growing at triple digits right now. So I think, like, focus on what you can control. Start with being great people. Start with being a great business.
Look after your associates so they can look after our members, and then you know that that generally will lead to the right outcomes.
So on that.
We'll hear from one of your big competitors tomorrow. Costco reports earnings tomorrow. How do you make sure that people join Sam's Club and not Costco?
Yeah?
Look, Costco is a great competitor. We think that we're great too, and we're doing a lot of good things. What I would tell you is this.
Because you have an aggressive plan in terms of expansion.
Yeah, I mean about it.
I know, Yeah, we're really excited about that plan. Actually, the club channel in general is a relatively small channel. There's a huge there's huge upside for the whole of the club channel. And I would tell you this, good competition makes you better, and I've never been afraid of good competition.
What about AI and how you guys are working?
Are you afraid of AI?
AI?
We're trying to AI.
Is a big topic everywhere now, isn't it. We You know, here's the thing we are. We're excited about AI as a company and I am personally too. I think this idea of.
Are you guys using it a lot?
A lot.
We've been using it for a long time, honestly, but the generative AI and then the agentic AI that's coming through too, is really exciting. It's exciting for our members and for our associates. What we do we pivot to growth? How does this help us move faster, do more for our associates and our members? How do we find different routes to market? So that's exciting. Of course, we also look at how do you find opportunities to take time out of product launches and all of those kind of
things so that you're a better business. The one thing that you may have seen is we also believe that the opportunity to give people to empower people with the use of AI but with an enterprise, but with enterprise data is really exciting. So whether it's in the office or recently, we made an announcement a couple of weeks ago at our holiday meeting where we gave our frontline management access to open ai, to chat GBT and which they can use to just go faster and do more.
And that's really exciting.
Our Thanks to Chris Nicholas, President and CEO of Sam's Club.
Coming up, we go all in on AI with the former head of Strategic Partnerships and Global Affairs at open Ai.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Leaders and one of the big topics this week that we've seen as World Leaders are in town and also as it's climate NYC is everything and anything to do with artificial intelligence.
I mean we can kind of stay away from headbines here. Every single day Microsoft partner with open AI rival Anthropic to help power its workplace. AI Assistant Anthropic founded by former open ai employees Carol. It's one of the largest competitors to open ai, a key player in the industry.
Yeah, just coming on the heels of one of the big stories that we covered this weekend, VideA announcing it we'll invest as much as one hundred billion dollars in open ai to help with that build out of data center. So there's a lot going on when it comes to AI. It's all about partnerships and we have a great guest to talk about that. Lane dilg is former head of Strategic Partnerships Global Affairs at OpenAI. She's had a career in law politics and she's also worked at the Department
of Justice. I'm rush, but you have like this incredible public private background. So when you think about AI, I don't know how do you make sense of just it just feels phrenetic. The amount of money, the amount of activity, the amount of headlines that come every day.
Yes, there obviously is so much happening, so many big deals in the news, and those big deals in the news do have real life implications for all of us. So incredible, As you mentioned, to see the Nvidia and open Ai deal showing that Nvidia will provide chips to open ai up to ten gigawatts and also make an investment one hundred billion dollars, obviously shoring up open AI's credit and providing a real runway for open Ai. Those kinds of deals we are seeing almost weekly right now.
You mentioned Microsoft and Anthropic as well, so very very competitive landscape and a landscape that is moving extremely quickly.
It's kind of funny to hear about Microsoft partnering with Anthropic, given that Microsoft is a huge investor in open Ai. What do you make of that? Like, what's the world that we're living in when you have these bedfellows?
Yes, I think you know.
I think everyone is watching sort of all of these different pieces. From an adoption perspective, people are looking at how how many different companies will individual companies work with? So do you want to work with one AI model? Do you want to one AI model provider? Do you want to work with many? Microsoft also has in house AI, they have the partnership with open Ai, and now you see them with Anthropic.
Well can you We've had some folks come on our program and say, okay, there's been so much funding, there's been so much money chasing these companies. There are also those people who say, we're kind of just going to wait until the doest settles because we think there could be this commodity issue when it comes to lms. What separates one LM from another, What separates Claude from chat GPT And I fully we're asking somebody who was at
chad at open AI. So yes, that's where this question is coming from.
A great question though, because obviously now I use all of them to try to stay up to date on where everyone is, and I also so speak with the different companies about sort of what their trajectory will be going forward. I do think the models are somewhat different just for users. They provide responses a little bit differently, they're friendly in different ways, they're useful in different ways,
and so there's some personal preference. I do think that we will start to see differentiation in areas like material science, chemistry, biology as people really move into these more specific domains where different model providers lean in. Who they work with and how will become important in terms of what you can do to solve problems with the technology. So and I think the other piece, as you see with the
Nvidio opening ideal. We often say infrastructure is destiny. It is true that there is also this massive race for compute, and that is because to continue the research and development, to continue to make the progress, you need compute and compute requires a lot of energy. So we don't know yet whether there will be a differentiation there or not, but everyone racing to make sure they have the compute they need to continue development.
You run your own advisory firm and you're you know, dealing with kind of innovation and partnerships right and working with other companies. But I want to go back to what Tim said. I mean, I think there was when the Nvidia deal came out that there was concerns that it was a sign of a bubble. That it's Nvidia partnering with open Ai. Obviously it's the company chat gipt so identified when it comes to AI at this point, but this idea that Nvidia needs a marketplace to keep
buying its chips. So I'm just curious. I mean, at some point, I don't know what are you hearing from companies as you talk to them. Are they a little cautious at all? Is there any nervousness about this incredible spend and this incredible buildout.
Yes, a great question. Obviously, financial experts around the world asking many of these questions. I think, you know, we previously thought that Nvidia may not be able to supply enough. So interesting to now hear people say, well, they are, you know, trying to find a consumer the gipsy. Yes, right, so I think you know, I think that conversation happening
on both sides. You know, my own personal view is that we are not yet anywhere close to maxing out the demand for compute and chips, and when we are, then you may actually see that model development as stalling or something else. But I just don't think we're there right now.
I am curious when you are at open AI and we know you left a couple a few months ago, but now you have your own advisory firm. Is the phone ringing off the hook of people saying, help me, I need to find this and what are they looking for?
Yes, so it is true that people are looking for lots of answers. They're looking for answers to the macroeconomic questions. They're looking for answers to help them guide investments. But then teachers and healthcare providers are looking at you know, what is the potential How do I take care of my workforce and also take care of those I serve at the same time, what is the pace of adoption.
I'm excited to be here with Bloomberg Philanthropies working on the Mayorage Challenge, which is a competition they run around the world for mayoral innovation for city services, and so many people in that space saying where are the opportunities for innovation, and we're seeing such interesting proposals there as well.
I just want to say I actually had a meeting with a giant company I'm not going to say who it was.
And we've heard of them.
Yeah, everybody's heard of them. But it was like we were talking about they were asking me about how I'm using AI I was asking them, and it's like we're all kind of fumbling our way through and we have courses that have come up at Bloomberg to kind of help us figure our way through. This company they're just kind of like somebody figure something out and they do it kind of a show and tell, but it's it's interesting how we're trying to find our way through this.
Yes, I've heard two CEOs at the Frontier Labs really really say the pace of scientific progress on the AI side is much faster than the pace of implementation and adoption.
It's hard.
These are large institutions with lots of people. You have to actually figure out what is the right way for your company, for your school, for your business, and that takes some time.
Chat GPT all the time. Personally. I use it at work too. We have the paid version at work, but I have the free version on my phone, and when it tells me I can't use it anymore, I just go over and use claude. How do you prevent that?
Like?
How do you get me to pay for it? Like? How do you monetize all the free users when so much compute is being used?
Yeah?
I think you know same with any product in a certain way. You want yours to be the go to. You want yours to be the most useful, the one that you turn to to solve the problems that are most important to you. And I think that companies are competing in that, and we'll see fits and starts, But you do you get accustomed to one product or another.
So will we be paying for it?
Well? I mean or is there going to be advertising?
Yeah, so I think you know right now you can pay for different different levels of access. I think that is meaningful both for individuals and for businesses. I use the paid accounts across all of the different companies, which may seem crazy, but I want to see where the capability really is. So I do think that is the monetization that you're seeing primarily.
And I'm not at taxed for, but that's a business expense, I would imagine.
So yes, I do think though about the intersection of technology and politics, and I feel like every decision is made with a careful glance at the White House. So talk to me about that and how that might I don't know kind of impact the deals that are done and how they're done.
Yes, absolutely, I think you see a lot of that in the infrastructure space. So if you if you look at the models, they, as we talked about, require compute, but compute also requires energy, and as we look at competition between the United States and China, I think people feel really good about our talent, they feel really good about our workforce, they feel really good about our innovation, but we do need to get more energy on the grid.
And we need to do that fast. And so I think you see this all of the above approach, but also disagreement over what is that all of the above approach, How does it work? Do things need to be grid connected or not? And most importantly, how do I make sure that consumers have the electricity they need at the prices they need while we power all this AI?
Well, is it ultimately going to be everybody, especially the hyper scalers probably doing their own energy development on site, that kind of thing.
Or I think you'll see a mix, just like you see the A mix and the financial deals. I think you'll see a mix both to hedge risk, but also because it'll be opportunistic. We need the energy as fast as we can get.
Hey, just want to end with what this does to the American workforce, the global workforce. Dario Amida over at Anthropic has been really outspoken about how this could just decimate white collar jobs. You agree.
So, I think there was a conference in San Francisco that people are watching just last week about what the different scenarios are. I think we don't know the answers yet, and so from a policy perspective, we need to be
planning for multiple scenarios. It's critically important that we understand both the data of how are jobs moving, where the transition's happening, and also look at the social safety nets and other things to make sure that if there is dislocation, we're doing the reskilling, We're doing the training to get people into a place that is product.
You've seen the tech up close, you know what it can do. What keeps you up at night.
What keeps me up at night is, as always, it's the humans. It's our human potential, it's our ability to step into this technology, and it's also what we can do with it for good or for ill. And I think that that's the space where I'd like to see the policy focused.
Are you worried about the bad side of AI?
I'm worried about humans using AI for bad purposes, is what I worry about more than the doomers, who are more concerned about what we would call alignment issues. I think the science on alignment is pretty strong and will continue to be strong, and people will be alarmed if it's not. But the question of what can you do with the technology is a hard one. We are about to all get more powerful.
That was Lane dilg former head of Strategic Partnerships Global Affairs at OpenAI. Again. We were broadcasting live this past week from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum at the Plaza Hotel. The event took place alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and it brought together heads of state, business leaders and more to address the world's most urgent
challenges and opportunities. There were a lot of leaders there, weird from Bill Gates, Ruth Pratt of Alphabet, Jane Goodall was there, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Brookfields, Bruce Flatt, and many more. Check out all of the interviews from the Bloomberg Philanthropies at Global Forum on the Bloomberg Terminal or at Bloomberg dot com.
Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The European buildout that investors are eyeing when it comes to sustainable economic development and how to.
Get those countries to come together to make it all happen. We do that with the lending arm of the European Union as well as the European Commissioner for International Partnerships. This is Bloomberg.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
This past week, Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form took place alongside the UN General Assembly in New York and alongside Climate Week NYC Now. The event brings together heads of state and business leaders to address the world's most urgent challenges and opportunities.
Among those challenges and opportunities is global sustainable economic development. And that's where Joseph Sekela comes in. He's European Commissioner for International Partnerships. It's kind of exactly what it sounds like. He's charged with working with countries all over the world to partner on everything from infrastructure, finance, decarbonization, sustainable development and more. Welcome, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you very much for the invitation.
So you're remed is big, it's global. How do you see this in the context of America first and the world in some cases turning more inward.
Well, my experience is slightly different. I don't believe in zero some games. I'm a former banker, and my experience is that all the business which is not to a benefit of all involved parties does not have a usually long life. And basically I think Europe is the best proof because being built from scratch after the Second World War, the cooperation the solidarity was basically one of the foundations of the success on the way to lifestyle superpower in average,
high salaries, highest living standards. This is not a coincident that from thirty most developed countries based on the Human Development Index, twenty are European ones. And this is basically
also the narrative. We want to promote partnership of equals, mutual benefit, strategic alliances which should help to create jobs, to create supply chains, to open the access to the world markets to less developed countries, because this is about the varue creation, but this is also about the fair access to critical raw materials, to more global security, to resilience Commission Sequila.
I am curious who's it easier to partner with China today or the United States?
Well, I don't see, for example, Russia as a like economic competitor arrival because what they can offer is just bribes, weapons, propaganda and lives in that they are good. China is basically plundering the partner countries. They are not investing in the future of the countries. They are interested to control the supply chain of the row materials and to weaponize it.
Uh.
And this is not the way we want to go. And I had a very productive meetings here with you as representatives and also with the senior advisor, with the advisor uh uh uh to President Trump on Africa. And this is not about us against Europe. This is about collaboration of guardians of democracy in order to ensure fair supply chains and uh and and about basically access to the chrotico romatillos in order to not allowed the authoritarian regimes to to weaponize it.
Your view on China really got my attention how you described it. Do do do countries that China has partnered with in the past, and I'm thinking of the historic Belton Road initiative from the last decade and a half or so, do they share your view that they do they feel like China plundered them.
Subsequently, I think the attention to the difference between promises and deliver is increasing in the countries. And since I took over the responsibility for global gateaway the European Investment Sustainable Investment initiative. I'm traveling, I am traveling a lot and to New York. I arrived from Pacific and from Africa, from Namibia. And yeah, sometimes I'm calling it belt and ring trap because our attitude is to empower, not to impose,
not to entrap. And there are simply examples, and Namibia is the best example. Where Europe is investing in education, in supply chains, in the economy of the future, in hydrogen production, in de carbonized direct reduced iron which can be then used for a clean for production of a high quality. Still for example, in Europe, when you take into account the structure of the trade between Europe and Namibia is very much diverse, and that there is a
balance positive in favor of Namibia. What is China doing. China is investings the road to the mines and buying purely unprocessed raw materials and shipping them and sending them to China. Meanwhile, it's China controlling seventy percent of the
raw materials. And we have in Europe very negative experience with dependencies and the bill for basically get rid of the dependence on Russian fossil fuels was extremely high and extremely painful, but we learned what does it mean if your arrival is weaponizing the supplies of the fossil fuels or critical raw materials against you.
Our thanks to Joseph Sequila, European Commissioner for International Partnerships.
Now along with the UN General Assembly this past week, as we said, it was also Climate Week NYC and Mother Earth was a big topic for President Trump during his UN speech, calling climate change quote the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, while also criticizing renewable energy and praising coal.
The President also warning you and member countries saying quote, if you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. That could spell a major blow to global climate change initiatives. Our next guest is still hoping to deliver over one trillion euros in green investment by twenty thirty. In his role, Ama was FIO is Vice President of the European Investment Bank. It's the lending arm of the European Union.
One of the big products of your opinion is climate neutrality by twenty fifty, right, and we have put in plaze to support the subjective a policy that is our climate strategy that has targets including having more than fifty percent of what we do in climate and environment. This is a target that we have reached. We are very closer to sixty percent. We are landing around one hundred
billion euros per year. So it's a big thing for us in terms of financing for renewable energy projects, energy efficiency, clean transportation, innovation in climate. And our goal is to continue and stay of course, because we think this is also something that is good for maintaining competitiveness in Europe.
And we are going to present to our board our climate strategy for the next five years that will basically continue the pace that we have chosen since five years and link that to the competitiveness of your opinion.
So, even with a narrative in some parts of the world that are maybe pushing back against climate change and green initiatives, sustainable initiatives, that nothing's changed for you guys.
No, for us, nothing changes in terms of the past and the objective. What we trial to do is to listen to what our stakehold does tell us, right and for example, some of the SMEs tell us that the reporting obligations are very, very complicated. So these kind of things that we are going to try also to address in our strategy, but the key objectives we are going to keep them.
Can you expand on the idea of competitive advantage a little more because here in the United States, as the president he said, if you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. He essentially thinks that it's a waste of money to actually invest in green initiatives or do you sustainable development. That's my takeaway. What's the competitive advantage that you believe the European Union Union has if it invests in this way?
I would say there are two things. And when you look at energy, we have invested thirty one billion euros in twenty five for energy projects. So the one billionaires is a lot of money in offshore wind farms, in grids, in a lot of also solar and nuclear are then the number of projects that are related to energy. The things that we see is one that actually the competitiveness of the cost of energy is going down for many
of these renewable energy and it's becoming competitive. And the second thing is when you look at energy, you also need to look at your independence and what we have learned since twenty two and that's why we're sped up. Actually, the implementation of our energy projects is that if you want to be independent from Russia, you need to have more and more energy independence. Energy dependence for a continent that has little energy itself means renewable energy and other kind of energies.
How are you thinking about and another war of course between Russia and Ukraine is not over still, but thinking about what might need to be done in terms of helping Ukraine going forward, the financing demands and needs that will be to build back or that's been destroyed.
Yeah, well, actually it is absolutely clear that the needs are euroge in Ukraine. And from the beginning of the war, we have been supporting Ukraine. Actually, even the week after the war we have you know, read on some of our loans to be able to send some financing to
to the Ukraine governments. Since the beginning of the war, we have financed four billion years of projects in Ukraine and that is mostly in projects that have you know, reconstruction of hospital, working with municipalities, train abilities and actually we have just opened a new a new line in Ukraine that where the you know, the tracks of the of the trains will be the same as in Europe. It wasn't the case before you had between the Ukraine
and Slovakia. In this case you had to change trains at the border.
Now you don't know.
As you rebuild, you do it, yeah, exactly.
And this is also on the way for accession of Ukraine to the European Union. And we have done something that that is not necessarily consistent with our climate strategy, but that we have done for Ukraine.
We have just approved.
Alone that is going to to low Ukraine to to finance it storage for the winter, because you know that's that's an emergency.
You're here meeting with leaders from all over the world. If there's a message that you have for American leaders and what you want from American leaders right now, what is it?
The thing that I like here is to be able to meet with a lot of people from very various backgrounds and now, and that's what makes these meetings so interesting. I mean, the trans atlantic relationship is so important that we need to do everything to make us as a good partners as possibley.
That was Amboise Fio, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.
And that wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Coming up in the next sixty minutes, more voices among the European leadership, including the Prime Minister of Spain, and conversation with Bloomberg News Editor in chief John Micklethwaite.
Plus a former Climate High Level Champion on how COPP will work in the face of American climate hostility.
As our coverage of the Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form continues, this is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and.
I'm Tim Staneveek. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube plenty.
Ahead on our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, we are highlighting conversations from this past week at the Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form held in New York City. Those conversations include a former UN Climate High Level champion on mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate actions amid a US pullback.
Plus how Canada is tackling the challenges and opportunities in sustainable economic development.
First up this hour. As you know, more than one hundred and forty world leaders and senior officials and delegations were in town this past week for the United Nations General Assembly.
Among them was Pedro Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Spain. He sat down for a conversation with Bloomberg News editor in chief John Micklethwaite, and their conversation touched on everything from Donald Trump, Spain's housing crisis, and yes, his re election efforts.
Prime Minister Spain, thank you for talking to Bloomberg. It's a pleasure to have. It's a pleasure I just looked. Out of all Europe's leaders, you are the one who seems most prepared to disagree with President Trump. You champion the cause of recognizing Palestine, You pushed against the five percent limit on defense spending, also been very close to China. I mean, when you heard his speech yesterday, did you which seemed to depict Europe as a kind of hellhole?
Did you think that was Do you think that was aimed at you.
Well, I think I'm respectfully disagree with President trump statement because you know, he took migration and climate change, as I would say, the major challenges.
That we have to fight against for and I.
Said, well, look, if you took, the experience of Spain is the contrary. So thanks to claim to these green policies, we have dropped the electricity prices since twenty seventeen till now by fifty percent, so that enables us to gain competitiveness, and thanks to that we are witnessing this extraordinary outcome of the economic growth in Spain. We represent thirty percent
of the total economic growth of the European Union. And when it comes to migration, in the last seven years we have received two million migration migrants, while at the same time we have dropped by forty percent the unemployment rate.
So only all.
What I'm trying to say is that green transition and migration when it comes on regular basis, are positive for the economic development of a country.
Do you think your fellow leaders in Europe could be braver about making those comments.
I think I think that we.
Need to keep Transatlantic bond and to strengthen that transonenting bond. It is in the true that we need to combine it with other policies such as, for instance, trade diversification. That is why we are we've been very vocal in reaching this agreement between the European Union and AMERICASUR, which it would be definitely a game changer in.
Our economic ties with other regions of the world.
And second, what we do, what we need to do within the European Union is to do our homework, as the former central banker Madadraghi always remind us, and that means that we need to deep in single market, that we need to review our competition policy in order to scale up a big companies in Europe and try to be you know, as good as competitive as a global corporation are in the US and other parts of the world.
It's very interesting though. You look at what's happened. Your economy has grown very well two point seven percent. You look at what's happening in other countries on the periphery, like Greece, there is a very interesting thing. A few years ago we were used to saying the referee is the problem. The core is great. Now it's the other way around. France, Germany, Britain barely growing at all. Do you think it is now the center of Europe that is the problem in the economy.
No, not at all.
I mean Germany is a big country, big economy, also France, and we always expect a positive, let's say, dynamic in their economies. But it isn't it true that from the south we can contribute to the economic growth of the European Union. So for instance, when you see that sixty percent of the electricity generation in Spain comes from renewable sources, that means that we have a potentiality that we can contribute to the autonomous strategic autonomy.
Is exposing that, don't you to France?
Yeah, well, okay, we need to interconnect better our greeds, but we are we're trying to convince our friends in
France to do so. So only know what I'm trying to say is that if you see the economic figures of the self in Europe, especially Spain, that represent an as said before, thirty percent of the total economic outcome of economic outcome of the European Union, that means that we have achieved many reforms that were demanded by the European Commission over the last years so we have achieved to reform our labor market, our patient system, our educational system,
and also our energy policy and digitalization, along with the contribution of migration. So it is true that these pillars also show that the economic background or pillars of Spain are quite solid if you compared to previous periods such as the one before the financial crisis.
And also your selfish question from the point of view all the foreign investors looking at this, many people want to invest in space for all the reasons you said, But you want to introduce one hundred percent tax on them if they want to buy a house there a second time?
Not at all, not at all.
What we what we need to face is a real challenge that I think that across Europe and also in in England, in the UK you're suffering, especially the youth, but not on the youth, which is the lack of or the impossibility to access to a house or to emancipate in the case of our youth. What we did is for all British people or European people that want to buy a house for living, they won't pay taxes.
The fact. Yeah, but this is the point.
We we need also to understand that we need to solve a problem of housing that we have in Spain. But all you know, if you see now the figures of a real estate sector, and this is how we are speaking. The process of construction in Spain is quite amazing. Nowadays. We have increased by sixty three percent construction of how let's say, public housing, whilst the private sector has increased like thirteen percent during the last year.
I'll a bit about the relationship to the economy and politics. The economy seems to be going very well for you. In politics, it's harder your party is behind the party to popular We've also got Vox coming up this much more right wing outfits, and then the current polls you would lose if the election. What do you think the problem is? You've got a good economy, unlike most other European prime ministers, and yet you're still behind POSA polls.
I mean, of course you have to look into it. You have to see.
What I am defending is that, unfortunately we're seeing not only in Spain but across Europe a political collapse of the center rights traditional parties, which, by the way, it started after the financial crisis with the failure of governments with all this rhetoric of austerity UH, banking UH and the financial rescue that we had to pay with taxes
all around Europe. And what you see now from the center right is that they are copying not only the way of doing politics of fire right, but also the contents. So you see now that they are like identifying migration with insecurity, which is a fake.
It is not true.
And and by the way, as I said before, when when you when when you see the figures in Spain, you can see that we had a we we have the contribution of migration, but at the same time we're reducing unemployment rates in Spain, and there are sectors such as construction, agro industry, or social services or tourism which Spain are quite important. We're up to twenty thirty percent of the total workers comes from different countries.
And not Spain.
So what we need to do is to face that we need migration. But for that migration, what we need to open is a path of regular migration. And this is what we are doing with many countries in Latin America, also with the US administration, with the previous administration, will reach a very interesting.
Program in order to.
Have this circular migration coming from the US and of course some countries in North Africa, but in all the contribution of migration to the economic growth in Spain is quite quite positive.
As if you're you're brightening for that fight.
So will you will definitely lead the Socialists in twenty twenty seven into the election?
Yeah, I will do it for sure.
This is something that I have already spoken with my family and with by party and if they allow me, I'm I'm confident that we can repeat a majority and to keep the work ahead. Not But let me add coming back to migration, that the dilemma that all Western societies we're facing is whether we open up and grow or we close off and drink.
This is this This is the real dilemma that we need to face.
So the challenge that we have within the European societies is how do we integrate this migration.
So you think it's easier in Spain because you get a lot of people from Latin America where everyone speaks the same language. That's that's at least part of the argument why you might.
Have been better.
So when you listen to some central right parties and the far right there saying well, we we need to expel all these migrants come into our Okay, so what we do with demographics, because either you have Natali do you say family policies plus migration, but they don't propose anything in these two policies, no migrants and less welfare state and therefore less family policies. Uh, and that means uh social social services, wealth, healthcare and social security and
so on and as well. So what I'm trying to say is that if we don't have this contribution of migration, but we will face in the coming years in Europe is that we have anest technicians we don't, we won't have the capacity to growth and therefore there would be more cuts in our welfare state. So so this is this is something that we need to explain to our citizens that if we articulate a positive migration policy, that would be for the good of the Europeans and the
Western societies. So, just to give you a figure, ninety four percent of the total migrants that are leaving nowadays in Spain came from regular let's say systems, and they are they came on legal basis. So we're talking about only six percent and this is the reality. So I think that we need to fight and to give a positive, let's say, message about the contribution of migration to our societies and to our prosperity.
That was Pedro Sanchez, Prime Minister of Spain, with Bloomberg News Editor in chief John Micklethwaite.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, coming up more on global efforts to stem climate change, with someone who has been a key player when it comes to United Nations climate efforts.
This is Bloomberg.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Another unofficial stated in nineteen eighty nine that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming not happening. You know, it used to be global cooling. Now they could just call it a climate change, because that way they can't miss. It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.
In my opinion, If.
You don't get away from this green scam. Your country is going to fail.
That was President Trump and is addressed to the United Nations this past week. As we mentioned earlier, the President was very critical of climate change. Now keep in mind, not all global leaders in town felt that way. We talked to a lot of them, as many attended more than one thousand events about actions and investments in renewable sources of energy and ways to tackle the climate crisis.
One of those was Mack Mood Mohill Dean. He's UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP twenty seven that was held back in twenty twenty two. He's also a former World Bank Senior Vice President and former Minister of Investment of Egypt. Macmoud joined us from the Bloomberg Philanthropiece Global Forum.
Well, I see it around the world, especially in many of the emerging markets countries of the Global South, in Europe and Latin America. It's moving, progressing despite the political statements and political hurdles because becoming today more affordable comparing what you can produce of electricity from renewables compared to fossil fuel.
So it makes sense just to compare the cost.
So people are progressing towards decarbonization and investing renewables because it's much more affordable and cost effective.
So the market is the market is making this decision.
Market absolutely, And a few weeks back what gives us hope based on some interesting big read article from the Financial Times that what gives us hope is technology, technology innovation. What we were producing at multiple of costs ten years ago. Each time we tried to cite a figure, we get corrected because of the lowering of cost. And when it comes to electricity, am I went, they're saying that about
the cost of adaptation. So, as you know, climate change had those two wings, the mitigation part or investing in the organization renewables that's becoming more affordable. But when it comes to adapting countries, societies and economies to the climate change and its risk, here we need to mobilize more public finance because the cost return is not really as straightforward when it comes to commercial market basis compared to decarbonization.
There, I want to ask you, So there was President Trump an hour address to the you and General Assembly out there were there, you were there, and some very strong words when it came to climate change. I'm curious when you have conversations with members of the administration. Are they as opposed in terms of US strategy what they talk about US strategy being opposed or well not supportive policies to stem climate change.
Members of the US Administration follow their leader and their.
I was curious back to our conversations.
But we see as well some practical pragmatic statements, like a recent statement that came out comparing investing in renewables in the form of solar versus wind farms. So there was a kind of a statement that tells us, well, you can invest better in solar, and then there is a great deal of investments as well in innovation when
it comes to battery storage and all of that. So we see some opportunistic approaches and more pragmatic approaches, but not really to oppose these strong statements coming from their boss.
Can I ask you in terms of cop this year, I'm just curious how Copple work this year in such an active kind of climate hostile that we see from the United States. Well, is that a problem not having?
Of course, of course it is for the biggest economy in the world, with the great deal of dynamism inventions, innovation that could really help not just the United States, but the rest of the world. We are missing a lot. But having said that, two things. Finance for Development Conference in Seville that took place a few weeks ago. It was fantastic, it was successful, it delivered. It was all
the world minus one, So that gives hope. The second thing the preparation for COP thirty when I was in Reo and their Climate Action Week, great deal of dynamics participation, not just at the leader's level, but community, private sector, civil society.
So it is happening. So again, the world minus one.
You've spent a lot of time thinking about emerging and developing economies, and here in the US, with the dismantling of USAID, with the pullback in foreign aid, this narrative has seemed to emerge, which is basically like, why should we be sending money to countries outside of the United States when there are people here in the US that need that money. What would you say to that?
Well, there is an evolution of thinking.
At the beginning of start of the aid there was the issue of consideration of others, and there's some sort of altruistic behavior that we need to help the rest of the world. The countries on the rich economies, and there was some elements as well of compensation, especially from the colonial powers that well, we exploited the resources of
these poor countries, so let's help them. And then it came as well issues related let's do the help because we will benefit more, even if a kind of self interest will like stability, we like bigger markets, well, like people to follow the same kind of standards, and we need to eliminate force migration. So there was a kind of mix of ideas between positive and negative. But then we are in a new world now and I think it very much the end of official development assistance.
As we know it. You do, yes, of course, not just from USID, and it's a.
Disappearance suddenly, but actually from other sources as well.
So what does the world look like, particularly the developing world in this new era.
It depends really where you are addressing the issue. For there are many countries, including my brothers. I'm an African and Egyptian, my brothers from South Sudan for instance, or Burundi, they are more dependent on external help and support when it comes to their budgets. Other countries would use aid as a kind of cathalytic help to help and bring in the private sector elements of innovation, blended finance, so
they will survive without aid. That other countries that are more dependent, especially in humanitarian work human development, they need really to get new sources, including from philanthropies.
Would you argue that there is a soft power element still to this as well, that there is a benefit for and look, I think this was an example used in New York Times article months ago. I've seen that one like, you know, a bag of rice shows up, it has an American flag on it. Yeah, somebody in some far flung place sees that and says I have a different view of America and an American As a result, it.
Helped promoting American values American culture, so positive to the United States in this case. But you can really see aid in different ways as well from the recipient countries. If aid is basically prioritizing what the nationals and the communities are pushing for and hoping for, this is a good thing. If it is a catalyst for transformation, it's
a great thing. But if it is crowding out public finance, if it is crowding out private sector, then you have other considerations, So there could be some sort of blessings in disguise when we are addressing these kind of changes.
China has been in the past, certainly very aggressive when it comes to providing funding, especially for the developing world. Just do wonder, in an absence of other developed nations helping out the developing world, is China step up its efforts?
Is there?
And is that a problem?
Yes, Like the old rules of nature and physics, when there is a gap, there will be a vacuum.
We find somebody trying to help you.
We see the role of China's rising, the role of many of the middle powers rising. The role of regional powers is rising as well, so and the role of foundations philanthropies, not just the big names that we're familiar with, but some of the smaller ones coming from the regions. And this comes associated with benefits including soft power. The issue that you mentioned or you cannot really draw a line now between what's aid and what's promotion for investment
or promotion for experts. So there will be some serious spillovers given this kind of sudden cut.
Are there is the money getting to the emerging world that needs it. In terms of certainly when it comes to climate initiatives, they are so vulnerable.
No, no, no, the development finance system and the climate finance system. I described it before we were preparing for a COP twenty seven and after that has been insufficient because there is a widening gap, Inefficient because it takes forever until you mobilize funds, and unfair because of costs, and we still suffer from the same problems. Now well, perhaps better public private partnerships, with the support of philanthropies, we can mobilize funds in a better way.
That was Matt Mood, Mohil Dean, you and Climate Change high Level Champion for COP twenty seven. That was back in twenty twenty two.
You know, I think what was interesting Tim, as we did these conversations with global leaders, and you know, we talk about climate so much on Bloomberg Business weekdaily. But I think what was fascinating is that global leaders they're moving ahead with their initiatives. I felt like we heard
that very much from the European contingencies. But I also know in having some offline conversations with companies that they too are not thinking necessary in presidential terms when it comes to strategy and policies and about their impact on the climate, and so they're thinking much more longer terms. So interesting to hear that the spend and the activity is still moving on, and a lot of it has
to do with I feel like. Another message this past week was the idea that renewables they make sense now right in terms of financially what they cost or how to go about them.
So we heard that over and over again, and that was pretty surprising to me because what as I understand it, the investment in these renewables in the beginning can be pretty high. But some of the European leaders, Carol told us that, hey, this is actually the market taking care of itself here. These energy sources for us at least are on par or cheaper than what we used to get. So this is the way we are moving forward. The question that I have for the United States is are
we going to be left behind? If the vision at the top changes, Let's say the next administration wants to invest in net zero or wants to invest in renewables, are we going to be left behind? Certainly, the idea of nuclear is something that President Trump has talked about a lot, but up till now, Carol, we know that these projects take a very very long time, right, very expensive upfront, and the US has not built very many new reactors in the last few years.
And we're going to find out how important it is to have the government support, whether it's regulatory, business initiatives, so that the private sector can go about and developing all of this. It brings to mind there's an incredible story on the Bloomberg this past week and exclusive, and it talked about venture capitalists from Western firms are starting to say out loud what they've suspected for a while, and that is China's dominance has left key sectors in
the West uninvestable. And they visited factories, they spoke with startup investors in China, and what's interesting is the VC's plan to avoid allocating funds to Western startups that cannot compete with Chinese peers, with some already halting investments in Western battery cell manufacturers and looking to collaborate with Chinese firms.
But I think about things like solar panels and renewables where China has been spending evs right big time, and many would say are definitely ahead of the US here.
Yeah, don't forget the reality is China is the world's largest source of carbon emissions, but at the same time it's also the strongest motor guiding the planet to a low carbon future. So the relationship that the United States has with China right now, the fact that we need certain materials or certain things in order to have renewables in the world come from China. So Yeah, this is a great story on the Bloomberg Terminal, written by Alistair Marsh. Do you check it out if you have their time.
Dill ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the CEO of Canada's Bilateral Development Financial Institution. As our coverage from this week's Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form.
Continues, This is Bloomberg.
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Carol Masser along with Tim stenoviek Rookier at Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form, We're going to continue with some great conversations from this event.
Yeah.
The event brings together heads of state business leaders to address the world's most urgent challenges and opportunities. Among those challenges and opportunities is sustainable economic development, and that's where Lori Kerr comes in. She's the chief executive officer of FINDEV Canada. It's Canada's bilateral development of finance institution. She joins us on set here at the Plaza Hotel. How are you.
I'm great, It's really great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Thanks gut gad to have you here. I feel like our conversation this year would be a lot different than our conversation last year if we were to have that. We're going to get to that in a minute. You invest in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean in a world that many would argue as turning inward. How do you convince Canadians that what you're doing is in their best time interest?
Well, I mean, if I quote some of the recent speakings of the of our own Prime minister, he certainly recognizes that when developing countries prosper, Canada prospers as well. It's a time to really lean into global partnerships to build resilience in global economic growth.
How do you prioritize how to do that? Because I'm sure there's a lot of folks saying we need.
Help, absolutely and quite honestly, like the demand is limitless for what findev Canada offers and other bilateral development finance institutions.
So how we approach our.
Financing and investment decisions is, of course, we have to have commercial sustainability, that's what we're going to We want to have vibrant market and we also look through three impact lenses. We have three impact lenses through which we work that informs all of our financing and investment decisions. Climate and nature action, gender equality, and local market development.
Has to check on all of those in order for it to happen, or not.
All of them, because different types of investments in financing opportunities will address one or more of them. We obviously, you know, look to try and have positive contribution across each of those, but not everything ticks every box, so to speak.
I feel like in this administration, in the environment that we're in the United States, those those boxes would not exist under this current administration. Does that? How do you think about that?
Well, it's again, it's a real wonderful opportunity for Canada's to show global leadership and again, when developing countries prosper, Canada prospers, and the world prospers. So it's an opportunity for us to continue with looking at having impact in the markets that we serve.
So with the US pulling back on foreign aid, with the US dismantling US aid, which certainly is controversial here in this country, as I'm sure you're aware, does it mean more of an opportunity for Canada or net net? Does it hurt Canada and does it hurt the world in the long run?
Well, I think certainly there's a lot of hugely, hugely negative impacts from a huge amount of the age a bathtub sort of a plug being pulled, so to speak. But we have to look at that as an opportunity, right, as I mentioned when we just started that, you know, demand for development finance, you know, is steep, but now it's really infinite because the US has traditionally played such a very big role in development data and in development finance.
So in a way, it's a tremendous opportunity for countries like Canada and like munded countries to lean in.
Laura, I'm always interested in the specifics of things, so talked to us about some things that where there have been investments made and what's the outcome.
Yeah.
Absolutely, So let me give you one example. So we were established in twenty eighteen, so we're the youngest bilateral development finance institution and one of our very first investments is in a company called Climate Investor one, and they're supporting energy transition across Africa, across Asia and across Latin America. So in twenty eighteen we made a twenty million dollar equity investment and now they've been able to raise eight
hundred million dollars. Eighty percent of that is dispersed across sixteen renewable energy projects. Six of them are already in operation, so that's renewable energy on grids, that diversification of energy matrices, that's supporting local economic and local ecodonomic growth, so really
having a positive impact. So they've been a really great example of how using public resources through development finance can really mobilize private capital and show that commercial viability and positive impact in climate can go hand in hand.
We have been speaking about the potential economic effects of pullback and aid by the United States and other countries filling that gap, but as we just heard Just moments ago we were speaking with Mamud Mohielden who basically said the era of developing countries being helped by other countries is over in his view. Do you agree with him?
Interesting? So what I would say, it's definitely a repositioning, right, I think we've for the last you know, fifteen twenty years, it's been an era and the era is changing for sure, So there's disruption in this system. Again, I do think that there are many countries that are still looking to play their part, believe that there is a role like Canada believes there is a role for Canada play in development.
So it's a reordering it, it's a reawakening and it's much more about partnership I think going forward.
Do you think about it from an immigration perspective at all? The idea that if you are able to improve conditions in other countries, the people who live in those countries will not feel forced migration.
Absolutely.
I think you know, Canada is differently situated than many of our European friends and partners in terms of the immigration issue. But certainly you know, one of the value added of supporting local market growth and local market development through the private sector is providing jobs. When you provide jobs, you provide incomes. When you provide incomes, you have a growing middle class. When you have a growing middle class,
you actually provide export opportunities for countries like Canada. When you provide good jobs, people are happy to stay at home and work and thrive in those local economies. So there's it's a reinforcing benefit, let's say, of supporting emerging markets.
What's been the biggest impact on your world as a result of what I would say is a conflicted relationship between the US and Canada now, which is kind of amazing to kind of get your head around. Anybody who's you know, steadied trade or history. Who to think, But this is where we are a little bit today. But what has been the impact on your world because of it?
Yeah?
So in the development finance world, it's again it's been a huge disruption. I mean, the US has been such an enormous player in development finance, as I said earlier, so we're all having to reposition ourselves. It's providing a lot more opportunity and an impetus really for collaboration.
Amongst the DFI community.
So the bilateral DFIs we're a humble, but we're really a mighty bunch and we really need to be supercharged. We co finance and we co invest sort of as a matter of course, we're again very collegial.
Well who else is stepping up with you? And you feel like really kind of all right, So if the US isn't going to be so active in it, what other you know, country or so on and so forth that are working more closely with you.
Yeah, So we work a lot with so the bilateral so for example, with PROPARCO in France, with a British International Invest in the UK, with FMO in the Netherlands, with DG in Germany. So I mean, there's a number of the European development finance institutions that we work with.
We also do co finance with the IFC, and in fact, just this week we're really happy to be closing one hundred and twenty five million dollars worth of transactions to two banks in Central America, Banko Industrial in Guatemalas we're providing a seventy five million dollar loan. Guatemala is one of the most scientific and vulnerable countries in Central America. Use of proceeds entirely for climate finance, so climate smart
agriculture and green buildings. And then the other transaction is fifty million dollars to Bengal Payis in Honduras and that's one of the poorest countries in Central America. There, we're also supporting climate finance, renewable energy, water and sanitation, as well as small and medium sized enterprises, micro small and medium sized enterprice and women owned and women led microansmalls.
Because I mean, I always think about all the micro lending and some stuff at the gap you do for women, right, and the impact that it has on a family in particular, How do you.
Make sure that the money is used efficiently? And you know, there were so many stories at least with us money that went out where you'd find that, okay, well, grants that went to certain organizations weren't necessarily used in the most efficient way or even used for what they were supposed to be used for. How do you make sure that there's not sort of a.
Fraud.
Yeah, I didn't want to say fraud. I just want to say there's somebody who sort of takes more than they're supposed to.
Sure, So, I mean we're in the commercial financing business, right, we provide financing and investment. We have a higher risk appetite than commercial capital, but you know, again we want to provide, we want to support commercial viable solutions. Part of the impact framework that we as development finance institutions bring to the fore is sort of the rigor and
vigor around the impact and the reporting. So you know, we do go in and we have the measures in the metrics to actually be on the ground and make sure that we're getting the information back, the data back, we go out and verify that. So again it's the depth around measurement, impact, evaluation and reporting that makes us thrive and allows us to actually have impacts in the markets that we serve.
Our thanks to Lori Kerr, CEO of FINDEV Canada, it's Canada's bilateral development financed institution.
Hey, before we wrap up, and I highly recommend you check out a bunch of stories at the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com because our whole team, our global team was in town and reporting out everything that was coming from the U in General Assembly and Climate Week NYC and one other stories we wanted to bring to your attention because when we talk about climate change in
the environment, you got to think about China. It's the world's largest polluter, and it did set a target to cut economy wide net greenhouse gas emissions by seven to ten percent over the next decade. It's a strategy that's seen as too modest with the nation on a path to net zero and galvanize global climate action. When you look at the big countries, the big polluters, like what they do, it matters.
The promised reduction from China's peak levels follows President Chijin Pink's pledge that was back in April to pursue more stringent curbs and to set policies that cover the entire economy, addressing pollutants beyond carbon dioxide. Now, Carol, it follows a tradition of Chinese leaders who've set relatively modest climate targets only to surpass them later.
Yeah, and you know, so it's interesting, right, and we've got to just think about the world and the connections here, I will say. The European Union's Climate commissioner did say that China's latest goals were met with criticism, calling the level of ambition clearly disappointing and saying it makes reaching the world's climate goals significantly more challenging.
Well, I mean it's a big deal that China's talking about that.
Well, that's my other big tech takeaway with everything going on in the world, and I kind of compared to last year where we're head of a big US election and conversations were different. At climate change was talked about a lot. And that wraps up our weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Of course, our highlights from this past week's Bloomberg Philanthropy is Global form. You can catch all the conversations from the event on the
Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com. Thank you so much for joining us.
Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week daily Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and on Sirius XM Channel one twenty one. You can also listen to us an Apple Car Play and Android Auto Free in the Apple app Store or on Google Play.
You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube just search Bloomberg Podcasts, or simulcast on Bloomberg Originals available at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Originals and streaming platforms including Roku, Amazon, fireTV, Samsung TV Plus and more.
Find our Bloomberg Businessweekdaily Podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts, and the latest edition of the magazine. It's available on newsstands now at Bloomberg dot com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. I'm Tim Stinebeck and I'm Carol Masser.
Have a good and safe weekend. Take care of Mother Earth.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.