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Asian Chemical Connections

Honestly, Nobody Still Has A Clue

By John Richardson JUST as the West was lucky, so was China. The Chinese economy was also buoyed by the Babyboomers, and by its 2001 admission to the World Trade Organisation that enabled it to greatly increase its role as the workshop of the world. This came at the cost of impoverished factory workers, environmental […]

Weak PE Margins Reflect Big Picture

By John Richardson BEFORE we look at last week’s political handover in China in more detail tomorrow, while on Friday we will return to our theme of Asian demographics, the above slide illustrates what the big picture has meant for the polyethylene (PE) industry. As you can see, variable-cost margins for Northeast Asian producers fell […]

China New Leaders Announced

Xi Jinping addresses the 18th Party Congress Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features     By John Richardson CHINA’S new seven-man Politburo Standing Committee was announced today, with the bad news being that five of its members are thought to be either conservative or cautiously conservative. The country needs reformers. The top job of party chief and putative […]

China Lending Declines In October

By John Richardson POLITICS, politics and politics are three most important factors that need to be evaluated when assessing the direction of China’s economy. Thus, in the short term it appears that the surge in bank lending from May to September might well have been to create the illusion of a robust economy ahead of the […]

Asian PE Recovery On “China Turning Point”

By John Richardson ASIAN polyethylene (PE) prices rose by $10-30/tonne for the week ending 9 November in response to reports of low inventories, according to ICIS. A further improvement in the market is anticipated by one trader, as a result of the release of raft of positive Chinese economic data last Friday. This is based on the […]

China’s Intellectual Property Challenge

Wen Jiabao – stepping down Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features    In the last of our series of posts on China’s leadership handover, which begins today as the 18th Party Congress meets, we look at intellectua property rights protection.   By John Richardson WHY bother innovating in China when a state-owned, or state-backed, company is able to steal […]

China: Consumption And Hot Air

Source: New York Times   By John Richardson TALK of a billion plus Western-style consumers is nothing more than hot air, with the temperature maintained by the financial sector eager to sell you its products. The reality is very different, as this article from the New York Times describes. In the third of our series […]

Tackling The SOEs

“The state advances as the private sector retreats…” The table below shows the size of China state-owned enterprises versus some other corporate giants. Source of table: The Economist. ICBC is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.    By John Richardson In the second of our series of blog posts ahead of this week’s 18th […]

China Leadership Challenges

Xi Jinping, China’s likely new president KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features By John Richardson The make-up of China’s new politburo will be announced during the 18th Party Congress, which starts on 8 November. But don’t expect confirmation of the new leadership team to do anything to address doubts over the country’s long-term economic direction. China will remain in what political and economic […]

Putting The Genie Back In The Bottle

Source of picture: Flickr   By John Richardson “How do you put the genie back in the bottle?” asked China scholar Victoria Hui in this New York Times article, referring to the difficulty that China now faces in stepping away with something tangible from its dispute with Japan over the East China Sea islands. Japan […]

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