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Asian Chemical Connections

China Commodities: Fool’s Gold

By John Richardson GILLIAN Tett’s splendid book about the root causes of the global financial crisis, Fool’s Gold, talks about “silo thinking”. Regulators, politicians and supposed financial experts had deep expert knowledge in their chosen fields, but lacked the ability to stand back and connect the dots. This, of course, led them to miss all […]

European Energy Sovereign Wealth Fund Needed

By John Richardson THE blog met with an old friend on its recent trip to the UK, a scientist, who moaned about her local MP’s  ignorance about why energy self-sufficiency was vital for any economy. “He is opposed to shale gas and shale oil because of all the concerns about  fracking causing earthquakes and water […]

Indonesia’s Jokowi: Poverty Alleviation The Key

By John Richardson INDONESIA’S new president seems like a breath of fresh air because he is outside the establishment and has portrayed himself as a man of the people. But one of Joko Widodo’s problems is that the establishment isn’t going to go down with a fight, as the appeal against his victory by rival […]

China’s “Whack-A-Mole” To Accelerate

By John Richardson Mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) is the latest petrochemicals product to be caught up in real estate-linked collateral trading, an industry observer recently told the blog. “To some extent, MEG has been bought not for real demand, but instead as a financial instrument to fund property deals,” said the observer. If a product such […]

China Going To Plan: Credit Up Just 4%

By John Richardson TOTAL social financing (TSF) in China increased by just 4% in H1 of this year over the same period in 2013, according to official government figures (TSF is the measure of total new credit issued in China, via both the official banks and the “shadow” banking system). This figure is of far […]

China Peak Manufacturing Season Disappoints

By John Richardson THE chemicals industry, because it supplies so many downstream manufacturing industries, is an excellent early indicator when something is going right or wrong with an economy. Take note, therefore, of the July Volume Proxy, which was published earlier this week by Paul Satchell, chemicals analyst with UK investment bank Cannacord Genuity (the […]

Germany Needs To Follow The Example Of Its Footballers

By John Richardson WHAT a fantastic World Cup and Germany were deserved winners. Their flair, dedication, organisation, attention to detail and team spirit were great to see. But in Gideon Rachman’s very thoughtful piece in Tuesday’s Financial Times, he highlights some of the points we’ve been making over Germany and its economy over the last […]

China’s Q2 GDP Number Is Irrelevant

By John Richardson CHINA is due to release its second-quarter GDP growth number today (Wednesday) and so the analytical frenzy is already well under way. For example,  AFP writes in this article: “Chinese growth failed to accelerate in the second quarter despite government stimulus measures, an AFP survey predicts, with the world’s second-largest economy forecast […]

India’s Budget: The Toilet Test

By John Richardson IT was fantastic news to hear that Narendra Modi, in his first budget as Prime Minister, has repeated his pledge of ensuring that every Indian has access to a toilet by 2019. But will he follow through on this pledge? We sincerely hope so as tackling this one big issue should define […]

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