As per Fact.MR, a provider of market research and competitive intelligence, the global electric truck market is forecasted to reach a value of US $78 Billion by late 2033 while expanding at a CAGR of 14.5%.

Electric trucks are vehicles that run on electricity instead of fossil fuels, making them eco-friendly with zero emissions. They are more energy-efficient, have lower operating costs, and benefit from government incentives, making them financially attractive for businesses. Electric trucks also operate quietly, reducing noise pollution, and advancements in battery technology are increasing their range and practicality.

Electric trucks are becoming popular because of a few reasons. First, strict environmental rules worldwide and the desire to reduce carbon emissions are encouraging the development of electric vehicles. Second, better and cheaper batteries are making electric trucks more practical for businesses. Third, people and businesses are more aware of environmental problems, so they are choosing electric vehicles.

Charging electric truck batteries takes a long time due to their large capacity and limited fast-charging infrastructure. This extended charging period creates downtime for businesses, impacting their efficiency and causing delays in deliveries. Electric truck batteries are heavy, which reduces how much cargo the truck can carry. This limits the types of goods they can transport effectively, especially heavy or bulky items.

The market in Asia Pacific is expected to climb to a CAGR of 23% during the forecast period (2023 – 2033). China is a leader in the region due to urbanization, automotive industry advancements, and industrialization.

The US market is expected to offer lucrative opportunities and the market is experiencing a significant transformation due to the increasing momentum behind sustainability and cleaner transportation initiatives.

Light duty vehicles market is expected to experience a CAGR of 6% during the forecast period due to its quieter operations and low operational cost.

Battery electric vehicles account for higher sales due to zero emissions and capability to reduce noise pollution.

Market Competition

The electric truck market, marked by intense competition, is experiencing a dynamic shift due to the worldwide demand for sustainable transportation solutions. Key industry players include BYD, Mercedes Benz Group AG, AB Volvo, Ford Motor Company, and Rivian. Competition primarily revolves around key factors such as battery technology, vehicle range, charging infrastructure, pricing, and overall performance.

Country-wise Insights:

What Possibilities Await US Electric Vehicle Manufacturers?

Objectives for corporate sustainability, federal fleet electrification, and cost savings should all be prioritized.

As the movement for sustainability and cleaner transportation picks up steam, the electric truck sector in the United States is undergoing a dramatic shift. Despite their higher initial prices, electric trucks can be more financially appealing over the course of the vehicle's lifecycle due to their lower running and maintenance expenses. In contrast to trucks powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs), electric vehicles have fewer moving parts and require less maintenance.

The federal government's determination to electrify its fleet of vehicles gives the electric truck sector a considerable boost. Government fleets switching to electric trucks promotes the viability of the technology and spurs private-sector adoption.

Sustainability is being incorporated into operational plans by numerous organizations and corporations. Their decision to switch to electric trucks is consistent with their aim to lessening their carbon impact and implementing eco-friendly practices.

SCG Decor PCL (SET: SCGD) debuted on the SET with the largest IPO of the year. The company is advancing its investment plan to foster stronger growth while implementing a strategy to grow its business by expanding into the decorative surface materials and sanitary ware markets in the ASEAN region.

Mr. Numpol Malichai, CEO and President of SCG Decor PCL (SCGD), reported that the company successfully traded its shares (SET: SCGD) for the first time on December 20, 2023, on the SET under the construction materials category. This significant move is part of the strategic restructuring of SCGD's business to position itself as the core company within the SCG group, focusing on decorative surface materials and sanitary ware products. It aims to strengthen its financial position to support business expansion plans, ensure working capital for ongoing operations, and adjust capital structures. With over 40 years of experience and expertise in the industry, SCGD is confident that its plans to expand into the decorative surface materials and sanitary ware markets in the ASEAN region will drive robust growth.

The company has continuous plans for investment expansion, having already invested in various projects. These include initiatives such as:

1. Investments to reduce energy costs and enhance production efficiency, such as installing solar power generation systems in factories utilizing biomass for hot air production in the production powder for tile manufacturing in Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam to reduce natural gas and coal consumption; reusing heat from furnaces in the production processes in Vietnam and the Philippines; upgrading production lines and kilns to accommodate new products and improve efficiency.

2. Production line investment projects, including establishing a state-of-the-art SPC tile factory in Saraburi; expanding the production capacity for large-sized tiles and glazed porcelain in Vietnam; studying plans for setting up a new sanitary ware factory.

The company sees opportunities to expand the market for sanitary ware and a diverse range of decorative surface material products in the ASEAN region. This market has great growth potential due to economic trends, growing population, and rising incomes. The company has formulated key strategies for business expansion, including:

1) Expanding the sanitary ware business in ASEAN by leveraging strong production bases in Thailand, sourcing products from China and Vietnam, accepting a broad range of branded products, and expanding its retail and online channels, including distributor networks in Vietnam.

2) Strengthen Thailand's decorative surface materials business and expand it to ASEAN. This involves increasing sales of High-Value Added (HVA) products, studying investment plans for tile factories in southern Vietnam, expanding markets through SCG's sales channels, expanding the SPC tile market in ASEAN, and investing in projects to expand and enhance production efficiency.

3) Expanding related products and services to reinforce leadership in comprehensive surface decoration and sanitary ware services. This includes adding to the product portfolio and collaborating with potential partners in ASEAN.

4) Managing the production supply chain efficiently, focusing on cost management, sourcing, and improving production efficiency towards a Smart & Green Factory to enhance profit-making capabilities.

5) Sustainable growth through developing eco-friendly products and environmentally friendly production processes. The company aims to increase the proportion of SCG Green Choice products to 80% of sales by 2040 and strives towards Net Zero Carbon by 2060.

Although the company's performance in the first 9 months of 2023 slightly lagged compared to the same period in the previous year, given the real estate situation in Vietnam, with revenue from sales at 21,522 million baht and a net profit of 760 million baht (after adjusting for non-recurring items), in the third quarter of 2023, the company achieved revenue from sales of 7,186 million baht and a net profit of 280 million baht (after adjusting for non-recurring items), representing an increase of 1.1% and 22.9%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter. This reflects an overall improvement in the economy, having passed its lowest point, and a positive trend in the market for the upcoming year. The company maintains a robust financial position, with a net debt-to-equity ratio of 0.3. Additionally, the gradually decreasing natural gas prices have positively impacted the company's production costs.

Mr. Pichet Sithi-Amnuai, President of Bualuang Securities Public Company Limited, acting as financial advisor and underwriter, stated that SCGD is a robust company in various dimensions. It is a leader in the decorative surface and sanitary ware products business in the ASEAN region, holding the number one market share for ceramic tiles in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Moreover, it is also the top market share holder for sanitary ware products in Thailand. The company is recognized and accepted across the ASEAN region, covering a wide customer base. It has a skilled product design and development team, modern production processes and technologies, comprehensive regional distribution channels, and is committed to sustainable growth under ESG principles.

The SCGD IPO is considered the largest this year, with a market capitalization of 18,975 million baht at the IPO price. The securities have recently been registered on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, replacing COTTO, which was delisted following its business structure adjustment plan. The IPO includes the first-ever offering to the general public and an offering to existing COTTO shareholders, involving 439,100,000 shares, equivalent to 26.61% of the company's total issued and paid-up ordinary shares. The offering has received positive responses from investors and existing COTTO shareholders who responded well to the share purchase offer. https://www.scgdecor.com/

LobbyingData.com and research data platform Dewey announce a new partnership to unlock academic access to historical US lobbying data. Through this collaboration, academics around the world can now easily obtain data from millions of lobbying contracts going back to 1999, providing unprecedented insight for a wide variety of research topics.

This newly available data includes details on 1.6+ million lobbying contracts, 13,000+ lobbying firms, 200,000+ total entities, and 78,000+ lobbyists, providing critical insight for a wide variety of research topics. Traditionally, such detailed information on US lobbying activity was extremely difficult and time-consuming to collect, requiring manual document sourcing and review. LobbyingData's proprietary algorithms extract 44+ attributes from government documents to make historical lobbying information more accessible, and this new partnership with Dewey extends this accessibility to the academic community.

Dewey is the leading platform for academics to access third-party data for use in their research and curriculum development. Dewey sources, negotiates, and manages license terms for academic use of third-party datasets, simplifying the data acquisition process for academia. Dewey's unique model makes access to these datasets affordable for researchers, and many are available as part of a simple yearly subscription. Today, Dewey has 29 third-party partners providing data to the more than 10,000 academics who now belong to Dewey's active research community. In addition to US lobbying information Dewey unlocks access to a wide variety of data types, including real estate listing, consumer behavior, point of sale, and workforce intelligence datasets.

"Dewey is excited to provide academics with research access to historical US lobbying data," said Dewey Founder & CEO Evan Barry. "We founded Dewey to democratize access to important information that can power groundbreaking research, and look forward to seeing the compelling insights academics are able to derive from LobbyingData's products."

LobbyingData matches all publicly traded entities to their stock ticker symbols for easier data joining, including joining to other datasets available on the Dewey platform. Attributes detailing the exact congressional bills and issues lobbied on further unlock research opportunities for the academic community. Examples of research topics made possible by LobbyingData include contrarian strategy, policy influencing, and trend forecasting, among others.

"LobbyingData is thrilled to partner with Dewey and help academics ‘follow the money,' added Neil Bhatia, Founder & CEO of LobbyingData. "Dewey is not only providing unprecedented access to third-party data for academics, but also unlocking access to important research topics. We are proud to work with Dewey to help academics conduct research into the policy landscape, macroeconomy, and more."

A sample of LobbyingData is now available to any academic with a free Dewey account; the entire historical US lobbying dataset can be purchased at an academic discount via the Dewey platform.

About LobbyingData

LobbyingData.com is the leading provider of alternative data on U.S. lobbying. The firm's database offers comprehensive real-time and historical information on all federal lobbying activity from 1999-present. Lobbyingdata.com tracks the $4.8B lobbying industry comprised of 1.6M+ lobbying contracts for 200k+ entities including 2k+ ticker symbols, 13k+ lobbying firms, all federal agencies, and every registered lobbyist. The firm delivers its data feed via AWS S3 and/or REST API.

About Dewey

Dewey is the leading platform for academic researchers to access third-party data. Founded in 2022 to democratize access to data for academia, Dewey manages sourcing, negotiating, and licensing of data from third-party providers so academics can focus on what they really want to do: conduct groundbreaking research. Data providers who unlock access to their products via Dewey grow their brands with the social proof generated by research content, and receive valuable product feedback from an active community of over 10,000 academics representing over 200 universities. To learn more about Dewey, visit deweydata.io

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently announced that China will take eight major steps to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with participating countries.

Xi made the announcement when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

To carry out practical cooperation for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi said China vows more financing support for BRI projects on the basis of market and business operation.

The China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China will each set up a 350 billion yuan ($48.75 billion) financing window, and an additional 80 billion yuan will be injected into the Silk Road Fund, the Chinese president announced.

Xi also revealed that the CEO Conference during the Forum held on Tuesday saw the conclusion of agreements worth $97.2 billion.

China will also support an open world economy through measures such as establishing pilot zones for Silk Road e-commerce cooperation, entering into free trade agreements and investment protection treaties with more countries, and removing all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, he said.

To support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, China, according to Xi, will also take steps to build a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network, continuing to promote green development, and advancing scientific and technological innovation.

China will also support people-to-people exchanges, promote integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation, and strengthen institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the BRI. By June 2023, China had signed more than 200 BRI cooperation agreements with over 150 countries and 30-plus international organizations.

"The Belt and Road cooperation was proposed by China, but its benefits and opportunities are for the world to share," said Xi in his speech.

Addressing the opening ceremony, state leaders and heads of international organizations spoke highly of what has been achieved under the BRI over the past decade and expressed confidence in its prospects.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the BRI links very well with the development of integration projects in regions across the world, while Indonesian President Joko Widodo expressed the hope that development synergies under the BRI will continue.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the relevance of the BRI is undeniable in the midst of the challenges facing the world today.