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Asian Chemical Connections

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. […]

Regional Trading Blocs: Globalisation In Reverse

By John Richardson HAS anyone out there considered the possibility that we could end up with a series of regional trading blocs as globalisation goes into rapid reverse? Or have chemicals companies instead come up with one-dimensional outlooks that assume the world will become more, rather than less, open, thus making it easy to shift […]

US Targets China VAT Rebates

                 Mitt Romney would declare China a currency manipulator                Source of picture: Wikimeda        By John Richardson China’s practice of providing value-added tax (VAT) rebates for importers of raw materials who then re-export finished goods is the subject of a new US Department of Commerce ruling. And a leading international trade lawyer […]

Yuan Devaluation Needs To Be Considered

By John Richardson The “beggar my neighbour” trade wars that many economists feared would erupt after the global financial crisis were delayed thanks to fiscal stimulus. But now politicians will be under increasing pressure to erect trade barriers. “We are seeing a rise in antidumping cases involving chemicals,” a trade lawyer who specialises in the […]

Saudi pressure fails to work

By Malini Hariharan The polypropylene (PP) anti-dumping investigation that Indian producers had initiated against exporters from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman has finally drawn to a close. The Finance Ministry confirmed anti-dumping duties (ADD) late yesterday, just a day before a recommendation made by the Commerce Ministry in August was due to expire. Pic source: […]

West To Exert More Cost Pressures

The US back-to-school buying season Source of Picture: theglobeandmail.com As regular readers will remember, last Friday I linked through to this article from the New York Times on the likelihood of a disappointing back-to-school sales season in the US. I had promised some more thoughts on this article and so here goes…. ……This is a […]

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