Entries from Asian Chemical Connections tagged with 'China labour costs'
China To Take A Big Stick To Financial Crisis
By John Richardson CHINA is facing a financial crisis that could put US sub-prime into the shade. "Between 2007 and 2012, the ratio of credit to GDP climbed to more than 190%, an increase of 60 percentage points," said US...
China Manufacturing Relocation Accelerates
Source of graph: Standard Chartered By John Richardson WORKING conditions matter as much as higher salaries for China's emboldened manufacturing workforce, according to this article in the Financial Times. "As the number of available workers falls, factories struggle...
"Flabbergasted" By Weak Demand....
....In A Tale Of Three Markets. By John Richardson AS China introduces more measures to clamp down on an overheated property sector and the shadow-banking system, polyethylene (PE) traders regard this latest news cycle as yet another opportunity to go...
Chemicals Demand Shift Will Not Be Smooth
By John Richardson ADIDAS recently announced that it is to close its only directly-owned sportwear factory in China. Many other similar factories could shut if Beijing sticks to its 12th Five-Year-Plan (2011-2015) promise to move up the industrial value chain. The...
China's Unreliable GDP Data
By John Richardson THE economic slowdown throughout Asia became more apparent last week with the release of disappointing data, prompting interest rate cuts in China, Vietnam and South Korea. China's key polyethylene (PE) market responded as trading volumes fell...
Cotton In Uncharted Territory
By John Richardson POLYESTER producers, and their raw-material suppliers, enjoyed a huge boost to their profitability between October 2008 and March 2011 when cotton prices increased by 468 percent from 40 cents/lb to $2.27/lb. This led to polyester...
North America Manufacturing Rebound
By John Richardson THIS fascinating slide from Accenture, in a new study that the consultancy is about to release on the rebound in North American manufacturing competitiveness, quantifies the steep rise in relative labour costs in China between 2001...
A Polyolefin Trader's Perspective
By John Richardson Word for word, see below what an Asian polyolefins trader told us yesterday: "This year has been absolutely terrible, the worst I can remember in eight years in this business, and even worse than 2008. There is...
China's Changing Demand
By John Richardson THE nature of demand in China is changing, despite the belief among some chemicals analysts, and companies, that everything will soon return to normal. Here is a summary of our key arguments. Please print off and...
Depressed China Demand Continues
By John Richardson ANOTHER week and sadly a repeat of the same old story: Depressed polyolefins demand in China. Pricing did, however, increase - by $10-50/tonne in the case of polyethylene (PE) and $10-40/tonne for polypropylene (PP), according to assessments...
PE Margins Lowest On Record
By John Richardson ANOTHER week has gone by with no evidence of significantly stronger polyethylene (PE) volumes in China. Rising labour costs, because of mandated government increases in minimum wages, and the shortages of labour post-Lunar New Year, are still...
Pricing To Struggle For The Rest of 2012
By John Richardson Further confirmation of the themes we raised yesterday emerged from an interview with a senior polyolefin industry source, with some important new analysis. Profitability in Asia is the worst of any of the three regions, he told...
A Palpable Sense Of Panic
By John Richardson THE blog has sought to add to the debate during the four years it has been operating by thinking around the big macro-economic issues, and constantly keeping in touch with our market contacts at "ground level" in...
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