Denmark

"So far, China hasn’t felt the economic pressure to abandon low-end manufacturing (clothing, footwear, and so on), in part because there are still a lot of poor Chinese provinces like Guizhou that have cheap labor. That trend might not hold given escalating tariffs. But if Xi is successful, it means that other developing countries (in Asia, Africa, and around the world) will be unable to climb the industrial ladder that China reigns over. Developed countries have reason to be alarmed as well. Since China is so large, it has the financial firepower to target any industry it wants for technological leadership. Small countries have had to pick their battles, as Denmark did in the wind industry and South Korea did with memory chips. China wants to have it all."

"On Tuesday, March 24, 1953, an article manuscript landed on the desk at Dagens Nyheter. The author was Ruben and the essence of the article was that the infected debate about an Öresund Bridge was actually outdated. Instead, why not take an Alexandrian solution to unravel the Gordian knot, he wondered. The day after, the DN’s front page was completely dominated by the sensational headline ÖRESUND DRY FOR A BILLION. “Not a bridge, not a tunnel, no, land shall connect Sweden with Denmark, a rolling plain with flourishing gardens and fertile farmland. And that land is the seabed under the waters of Öresund! For 800 million, maybe a billion, the two countries get this perfect connection with each other: it is not more expensive than a bridge or tunnel and unlike those solutions, it pays back the investment and more,” read the front-page lead."

"Only LEGO bricks were introduced in Germany, none of the other toys. But the German entry proved not to be easy. As in Denmark, the German toy buyers could not see the idea and believed that Germans were interested in mechanical toys. Export advisors in Denmark shook their heads at the thought of exporting toys to Germany, which had the status of the homeland of toys."

"Not because the crisis would have killed the LEGO idea. The LEGO brick, with everything it represents, would likely have continued to exist under the management of another company, such as Disney. Children still play with their fingers, whether it’s with sand, clay, or LEGO bricks. However, the LEGO brick would probably no longer have been an idea developed and sold from Denmark."

"In the beginning, he had no fund, so financing had to be arranged for each individual deal, which took a lot of energy. It was still forbidden for foreigners to invest in Swedish companies without government permission. Therefore, Ahlström rented a small office in Copenhagen, where the rules were more liberal because Denmark was in the EU."

"Nutella contributes to the unstoppable growth of Ferrero in Europe. Other factories and commercial offices open in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. There's an anecdote that alone could tell the success of the new product, without resorting to what we now call market research: the 'spalloni', smugglers who come from Switzerland to Italy loaded with American cigarettes and with some watches, on the return carry in their robust backpacks loads of Nutella and other Ferrero products. Especially in Switzerland, one of the historical homelands of chocolate."

"Once he had become wealthy from fishing, Thor started preparing for the founding of Eimskip, a publicly traded Icelandic shipping company, which was to operate between Iceland and neighbouring trading partners, particularly Scotland and Denmark. He hosted the preparatory meetings at his home and was the biggest individual shareholder, and he probably thought he would be chairman of the board. But when push came to shove, his colleagues did not think it proper for a Dane to be chairman of a company that had become emblematic of Iceland’s renaissance and was referred to as the nation’s ‘dream child’ during its initial stock offering. He was appalled and never had anything to do with the running of Eimskip again."

"We designed the Bravo brewery in a modular way that allowed us to quickly scale up production. I took advice from brewery experts in Denmark who told me that the typical mistake people make in designing breweries is that they do not allow themselves room to grow. So we started at a capacity of 1 million hectolitres, with a three-stage plan to take it to 2.5 million hectolitres and then 4.5 million hectolitres."

"We designed the Bravo brewery in a modular way that allowed us to quickly scale up production. I took advice from brewery experts in Denmark who told me that the typical mistake people make in designing breweries is that they do not allow themselves room to grow. So we started at a capacity of 1 million hectolitres, with a three-stage plan to take it to 2.5 million hectolitres and then 4.5 million hectolitres."