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Asian Chemical Connections

Spend Your Supply-Driven Profits On Managing Demand

By John Richardson IT has been a fantastic few months for Asia’s naphtha cracker industry as the above chart further illustrates. Even in the case of poor old, very heavily commoditised raffia-grade polypropylene (PP), variable cost margins so far this year for integrated naphtha-based players have averaged $389/tonne. The story is even better for low-density […]

Thailand’s Military Coup: The Implications

By John Richardson AS THAILAND wakes up to the shock that Tuesday’s declaration of martial law has morphed into a full-scale military coup, you have to ask this question: How is this going to solve anything? The imposition of martial law was designed to bring the two political sides together in attempt to broker a […]

Martial Law In Thailand: What It Means

By John Richardson SO far so good is the interpretation that some petrochemicals industry executives have placed on the long-running political crisis in Thailand. Despite the local economy being close to a recession after GDP contracted by 2.1% in Q1 of this year, the executives argue that: Most of the petrochemicals that Thailand produces are […]

Thailand Solution Seems Out Of Grasp

By John Richardson THAILAND looks as if it is likely to be in political turmoil for at least several more months following an inconclusive General Election last Sunday. The election failed to resolve the crisis because of low voter turnout and some seats being uncontested. Other obstacles to a quick political fix include legal challenges […]

Thailand: Papering Over the Cracks May Be Harder

By John Richardson THE longer that the political crisis in Thailand drags on, the more we worry that economic growth will be badly affected. Tourism, for example, is around 10% of the country’s GDP and the Tourism Authority of Thailand estimates that hotel occupancy rates in Bangkok are down to just 30-40%. Nearly $4 billion […]

The WTO “Bali” Deal Versus ASEAN Priorities

By John Richardson WHY sacrifice national or regional growth for the sake of freer global trade? This is a question the blog has been asking itself since the breakthrough last week at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Bali. This follows our earlier thoughts on how regional trading blocs may become much more significant. […]

China’s Overshadowing Economic Importance

By John Richardson AS we head into this weekend’s crucial November plenum , it is worth remembering that there is no chemicals and polymers market to compare with China’s in volume terms anywhere else in Asia. Take polyproplyene (PP) as just one example. Industry estimates are that China’s consumption totalled around 16m tonnes in 2012. Its […]

Malaysia’s Scary Investment And Spending Bubbles

Source: http://www.globalpropertyguide.com   By John Richardson Will this time really be different in Southeast Asia? Everyone hopes so. But the arguments put forward by economist Jesse Colombo back in January – about investment bubbles building up across the region – served as an early warning that it is possible we are heading for another economic crisis […]

Thailand: Build A Contingency Plan

Source: Petroleum Institute of Thailand   By John Richardson IT can be argued that Thailand is in a better state than fellow ASEAN members Indonesia and Malaysia. Government spending in Thailand relative to GDP is said to be lower than in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Compared with Malaysia, Thailand also has a larger working-age population, […]

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