Entries from Asian Chemical Connections tagged with 'China'
A Delicate Balancing Act
XI Jinping (see picture), the country's new president, is being described either as a nationalist, who has set China on an overly aggressive course or as someone who will skilfully and harmoniously guide the nation through major domestic and international reforms....
China PE Recovery Lacks Firm Foundation
By John Richardson DESPITE a slight pick-up in China's polyethylene (PE) prices over the last two weeks (see above chart), producers and traders remain gloomy about the immediate outlook. "What has driven prices up is that new supply hasn't...
China's Auto Sales Challenge
By John Richardson THE assumption behind big investments in auto capacity in China - and in butadiene, synthetic rubber, polypropylene (PP) and other chemicals and polymer capacities linked to the auto industry - is that, eventually, Western levels of car...
China's SMEs Continue To Struggle
By John Richardson ONE of the reasons why China's polyethylene (PE) demand growth has been below the increase in overall GDP for most of the years since 2006 has been the relatively weak performance of the country's small and medium-sized...
In Search Of Smart Customers
By John Richardson JUST about every Asian cracker operator is losing money right now, according to a polyolefin industry source. And the above chart indicates that margins are wafer-thin in Northeast Asia because of the unexpected weakness in the China...
Managing China's Middle Income Aspirations
Finding a way through.... Traffic in Shanghai. Picture: Rex Features By John Richardson WHEN the blog first visited China in the late 1990s, it travelled around Beijing in a fruitless and naive attempt to get people to really talk about everyday life....
More Than Just Absence Of "Animal Spirits"
By John Richardson THE blog held a full day of discussions with our ICIS China price reporting team in Shanghai (we will provide a lot more details next week) and the story was consistent: *Government policy to rein-in liquidity, most...
China's New Expectations
By John Richardson THE difficulties of life in modern-day China was evident from several conversations the blog has held during the first two days of its visit to the country. "I had to get an apartment first, which cost a...
A Note From Beijing
Dear all THE blog is very busy this week, travelling to Beijing and then Shanghai, and so apologies if our posts are a great deal shorter than usual. But just to show that we haven't forgotten you, this is a very interesting...
China's Numbers Game
By John Richardson YET more problems with Chinese economic statistics have emerged, casting doubt over the idea that an economic hard landing was avoided in 2012 - and that there was a strong rebound in the fourth quarter. "Official data...
China's New Credit Clampdown
By John Richardson BEIJING is clearly getting worried that its politically motivated 2012 economic stimulus programme has damaged the economy. "Just when the world had bought into a Chinese economic recovery, along comes the government throwing proverbial spanners in the...
The Attention Span Of Commodity Markets
By John Richardson PARTICIPANTS in commodity and financial markets sometimes appear to have very short attention spans. But they are merely doing their jobs by seeking to stretch out rallies as long as possible through claiming everything that was being...
China's Internet Decision
By John Richardson CHINA'S polyethylene (PE) market sentiment rebounded in mid-December on greater confidence that the country's new leaders meant business on economic reform. And since then, commodity prices in general, including those for iron ore have rebounded thanks to a...
The Challenges For 2013
By John Richardson WE wish our readers a great festive season and wish them all the best for the New Year. We will take a break and resume the blog on 28 December. We really do wish we could be...
China's Two-Speed Recovery
By John Richardson CHINA appears to be in the midst of a two-speed recovery as a result of stronger domestic growth, while the export environment remains very bleak. "Our polyethylene (PE) sales to converters who sell into the domestic market...
European Petchems Face Tough Choices
By John Richardson AT LEAST one global polyolefins producer is rumoured to be shipping increased volumes of resin from the US to Europe in response to the shale gas-derived shift in competitiveness. "Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris is making...
China Polyethylene Sentiment Recovers
By John Richardson CHINA'S polyethylene (PE) market is enjoying a mini-rebound on improved confidence in the ability of politicians to turn the economy around, the blog has been told. There seems to be a feeling out there that more help...
China's Divided Authority
Source: The Economist By John Richardson ONE of the blog's Indian friends said last week, as he worries about his country's political failings: "I sometimes wish were more like China, where, when the Politburo says 'do this' it...
China PE Growth At Only 4%
By John Richardson CHINA's polyethylene (PE) demand growth was up just 4% in January-October of this year compared with the same period in 2010, as the chart above from Global Trade Information Services (GTIS) indicates. And yet in January,...
Social Change And Growth
South Korea and its consumer-driven economy Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features By John Richardson MEASURING demand growth cannot involve merely assuming that the future will be the same as the past, as this increasingly complex world continues to tell...
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