Forbes - USA (2019-11-30)

31

FR

O

N

TR

U

N

N

E

R

NOVEMBER 30, 20 19 FORBES.COM

Over one million people

flocked to Romania this

year to attend a surging

number of music festivals

like Untold, Neversea and

Electric Castle.

ROMANIA

RUSSIA

VIETNAM

Begone! An increasing

number of European and

other global cities are suf-

fering from a tourist deluge

and considering how best to

protect their cities from the

growing hordes.

POLAND

In Bratislava, Pavel Pelikán

is putting up the city’s first

true skyscraper (550 feet

tall). In London, his J&T

Real Estate is erecting two

residential towers along the

Thames River.

SLOVAKIA

SPAIN

“End the era of open...

trade,” says Raúl Gutiérrez

Muguerza, CEO of Deace-

ro, a top steel company.

He believes Mexico’s

exports have damaged its

manufacturers.

MEXICO

Companies like Pinterest

are increasingly turning

to Unbabel’s AI-powered

software to translate

languages.

PORTUGAL

PANAMA

JAPAN

As young men,

they were stone

masons. Today

Aidyn Rakhim-

bayev and Evgeny

Evdokimov run

BI Group, one of

Kazakhstan’s larg-

est construction

companies.

KAZAKHSTAN KOREA

Travel mogul Neşet Koçkar

hopes to resurrect Thomas

Cook, the British tour

operator that unexpectedly

folded in September.

TURKEY

Vanachai Group, a maker

of wood panels and floor-

ing, is hoping to rebound

after high U.S. tariffs hit it

hard in 2018.

THAILAND

NIGERIA

Meet Young-Mi Youn,

the meat mogul

behind Highland

Food, which she has

grown to $36 million

in sales.

Designer Betu

Kumesu’s luxury

handbags come

handmade by six

Nigerian artisans

from the nation’s

Kano region. A

recent collection’s

inspiration? The

patterns and motifs

from the Congolese

Kuba Kingdom.

A professor at South

Africa’s University of

the Witwatersrand,

Marcus Byrne, is

studying dung

beetles, hoping to

take observations

on how they live and

move and apply them

to robotics.

Central America is witness-

ing a fintech boom. There

were over 1,400 last year, a

66% increase since 2017.

Artist Kouji

Tajima created

the concept art

for Godzilla and

Tim Burton’s

Miss Peregrine’s

Home for Pecu-

liar Children.

Energy giants Lukoil and

Surgutneftegas and gro-

cery chain X5 Retail lead

a list of Russia’s biggest

companies.

More than 50,000

students across

Vietnam are

piling into the

schools run by the

Nguyen Hoang

Group, a former IT

company.

On Forbes Spain’s new

list of the top influencers:

gamer Samuel de Luque,

who has 27 million You-

Tube subscribers.

The largest

solar-panel park

in Latvia has

been powering

Salaspils with its

supply of warm

water thanks to

Ina Bērziņa-Veita,

CEO of Salaspils

Silturns, a heating

company.

LATVIA

SOUTH AFRICA

MONGOLIA

Mongolia’s benchmark

stock index has rallied

over 85% in the past three

years since Davaasuren

Sodnomdarjaa became

chairman of the Financial

Regulatory Commission in

July 2016.