With travel restrictions, closed factories and social-distancing measures in place for much of the year, 2020 was particularly challenging for industrial companies around the world. However, despite such constraints, many countries were able to successfully repurpose production to meet needs associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, while others look set to benefit from shifting trends in global supply chains. Early Challenges Industry was affected from the moment Covid-19 began spreading across China, which is the world’s largest industrial producer and was responsible for around 28% of global pre-crisis manufacturing output.

As companies look to shift towards more environmentally sustainable operation, those in fossil fuel or heavy-polluting sectors are increasingly turning to transition bonds – a relatively new class of debt instrument used to fund a company’s transition towards reduced environmental impact or lower carbon emissions. They are often issued in large carbon-emitting industries that would not normally qualify for green bonds, such as oil and gas, iron and steel, chemicals, aviation and shipping. In the UAE, for example, Etihad Airways issued a $600m sukuk (Islamic