Visitors and staff wearing protective face masks walk down the Main Street of Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallee on the outskirts of Paris last year. Disneyland Paris, normally Europe’s biggest tourist attraction hosts a mass Covid vaccination site at its convention centre as France seeks to speed up its inoculation drive, officials said last week. The amusement park east of the capital has been closed since October 30, when non-essential businesses were ordered to close amid a surge in infections, putting its 17,000 employees out of work.—AFP
India’s stealth power
India has proved to be a popular — and clever — investor in poor countries. Many developing countries are vocal about their dislike for the Chinese firms that invest there. Yet, no one bats an eyelid at India’s commercial presence. Why? Tata Motors has huge assembly plants in many countries, including South Africa and Malaysia. Bharti Airtel is one of the biggest telecoms operators in Africa. The Aditya Birla Group is the world’s largest producer of carbon black, an ingredient in car tyres. It is one of Egypt’s biggest industrial investors and exporters. One reason is that, unlike China, state-run firms are not the ones doing the investing. Indian investors include families who have been doing business there for generations, and they also have a better reputation for hiring and buying locally. Even in strategic sectors, such as infrastructure and communications, Indian foreign direct investment is not viewed as geopolitical scheming or hegemonic ambition.