By John Richardson CONFUSED? You shouldn’t be. Yesterday’s announcement of two Chinese purchasing managers’ indices for July, which had moved in opposite directions, merely underlines the imbalances in China’s economy. The final HSBC/Markit PMI for July came in at 47.7 – an 11-month-low and the same as the flash forecast released a couple of weeks […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Water Shortages to Scupper China CTO Industry
By John Richardson THE debate about how exactly how much coal-to-olefins (CTO) capacity China will add has been largely around the economics of the process versus that of naphtha cracking. In terms of capital costs, building a CTO complex costs 1.5-2 times more than constructing a naphtha cracker, according to our colleagues at CBI […]
Listen To The Iconoclasts
By John Richardson Does your company employ an independent economist who forms her or his own view of where China is heading, or does it instead just accept the conventional wisdom dished up by the big institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? A management consultant we spoke […]
China Household Incomes Matter More Than GDP
By John Richardson THE conventional way of measuring the health of an economy is, of course, to assume that the stronger the growth in GDP the better the outlook. But in China, rather than viewing charts such as the one above as bad news, they should be interpreted as a sign that all is good. […]
China PE Demand Up By 13% On Environmental Concerns, Restocking
By John Richardson CHINA’S apparent demand for polyethylene (PE) surged by 13% in January-June this year (red column) compared with the same months in 2011 (blue), according to data from Global Trade Information Services. This represents a further improvement from the 10% increase in PE demand in the January-May period of 2013. “This is all […]
China PE Demand Boosted By New Environmental Clampdown On Recycling
By John Richardson BACK in 2009, virgin polyolefins demand growth in China was boosted by a sharp drop in imports of recycled or scrap plastic resulting from tougher enforcement of environmental regulations. Now another government crackdown on imports of scrap material, again due to environmental concerns, might have provided a further benefit to demand growth for […]
China’s “Mini-Stimulus” Package
By John Richardson The big question this morning for anybody concerned about China’s long-term economic future is whether its “mini-stimulus package” will do any good. Yesterday, Beijing announced that it would eliminate taxes on small businesses, reduce costs for exporters and line-up funds for the construction of railways. This followed Prime Minister Li Keqiang declaring […]
China’s Reform Process Jeopardised
By John Richardson LAST week’s decision by China to give its banks the freedom to compete for borrowers, by removing the floor on lending rates, has been praised by most analysts. “This is one of the biggest steps they could have taken. It tells you something about the trajectory,” Mark Williams, chief economist at Capital […]
US Stocks Defy China Reality
By John Richardson ALL is right with the world if you are one of the small percentage of people, globally, who invest in US stock markets. Last week, as this article from Barron’s pointed out, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index hit new highs. And on Monday of this week, the S&P hit yet […]
Mainstream Catches Up
By John Richardson Apologies to readers for the test blog post, by one of our colleagues, that appeared this morning – a technical error! As the blog catches up on a mountain of emails after a long trip, briefly, it is interesting how our ideas are becoming mainstream. Here is one example – an article […]
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