📈#065: China's exports surge 13.6x as Brazil's 9.2% interest rate tops global chart

Welcome to this week's edition of Market Mosaic, where we are exploring today how the dramatic rise to global export dominance is reshaping supply chains worldwide, and examining the strategic shifts allowing cloud providers to gain ground in the Middle East.

We also analyse the divergent paths of retail employment sectors and decode what varying real interest rates reveal about economic strategies across major markets. These interconnected trends point to a global market of increasing complexity.

Plus, we now have a fresh and newly designed look to enhance your reader experience on Market Mosaic.

— Insights Team, Rwazi

In our edition this week:

• Sector Performance Tracker

• Technology

• Economy

• Consumer Retail

• Supply Chain
  

While U.S. tech giants established early footholds in Middle Eastern cloud infrastructure, Chinese providers like Huawei and Alibaba are rapidly gaining ground through strategic alliances and government-aligned initiatives. Our analysis shows this shift reflects a fundamental change in how technology providers must compete in emerging markets.
 
Chinese providers have captured 37% of new cloud contracts in the Gulf region over the past six months, a dramatic increase from 18% in the previous year. This growth comes despite the established presence of AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle across multiple data centres in the region.
 
Particularly noteworthy is Huawei's establishment of four cloud facilities, including an ultralow latency data center in Saudi Arabia, directly supporting the kingdom's cloud-first policy that mandates government offices to prioritize cloud services over hardware purchases for new projects.

Our data of analysis of World Economic Outlook data has shown a significant variation in real interest rates across major economies, highlighting divergent monetary policy approaches and economic conditions worldwide.

Russia currently maintains the highest real interest rate at 14.5%, as its central bank combats persistent inflation. Brazil (9.2%) and Mexico (5.3%) follow with similarly high real rates aimed at controlling inflation and reducing currency volatility.

The United States sits at a moderate 1.5% real rate amid cooling inflation and gradual cuts in the Fed funds rate, which has decreased from 5.5% in August 2024 to 4.5% in March 2025. This carefully calibrated approach reflects the Federal Reserve's balancing act between containing inflation and supporting economic growth.

Japan stands as a notable outlier with a negative real rate of -2.1%, continuing its ultra-loose monetary stance to stimulate economic activity and encourage investment in a persistently deflationary environment.

Our analysis of U.S. retail employment data shows the sector's resilience and evolution since the Great Recession. While retail employment has grown 7% overall since 2010, this growth has been remarkably uneven across subsectors, reflecting profound shifts in consumer preferences and shopping behaviours.

The most dramatic growth has happened in motor vehicles and parts (+24%) and building materials and supplies (+23%), sectors that benefited from the pandemic-era shift toward home improvement and personal transportation. Gas stations (+20%) and non-store retailers (+18%) have also seen substantial employment growth, the latter reflecting the continued rise of e-commerce.

At the other end of the spectrum, electronics and appliances (-22%) and clothing and accessories (-20%) have experienced the steepest employment declines. This trend reflects both the consolidation of physical retail in these categories and the increasing efficiency of operations through technology implementation.

Food and beverage retailers have shown moderate growth (+12%), maintaining their position as essential services even amid rapid technological disruption.

The transformation of global trade over the past two decades has been nothing short of extraordinary, with China's ascent to manufacturing dominance completely redrawing the map of global exports.

In 2000, China ranked seventh among global exporters with $249 billion in merchandise exports. By 2023, it claimed the top position with a staggering $3.4 trillion—a 13.6-fold increase that dwarfs global export growth (which expanded 3.7-fold from $6.5 trillion to $23.8 trillion).

World's Largest Exporters: 2000 vs. 2023

• 2000: United States ($782B) → 2023: China ($3,379B)

• 2000: Germany ($552B) → 2023: United States ($2,021B)

• 2000: Japan ($479B) → 2023: Germany ($1,718B)

 
Thank you for reading and joining us on Market Mosaic this week. We hope this edition provides valuable, actionable insights for decisions with data. 📊

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Our captivating presentation strongly resonated with the audience, showcasing our real-time, zero-party and hyperlocal data approach and how we seamlessly integrate advanced AI agents throughout our market intelligence processes. 📊 

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Here are the insights what we shared last week on LinkedIn from the newsletter — feel free to check it out, comment or repost if it hits home.