Entries from Asian Chemical Connections tagged with 'china property bubble'

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 Investment Lowest Since 2002

By John Richardson THE chart above indicates the extent to which polyethylene (PE) price rises over the last few weeks have failed to adequately compensate for higher feedstock costs. Last week saw prices edge up by a further $10-40/tonne, according...

It All Depends On Your Time Frame

By John Richardson HOW long a recovery lasts is always relative to your investment horizons. For example, if you are a day trader in the Dalian Commodity Exchange's futures contract in linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), a rebound might only need...

Forty Five Minutes On China

By John Richardson CHINA'S GDP (gross domestic product) growth could fall to only 6.6 percent this year compared with 9.2 percent in 2011, warned Patrick Chovanec, an economist at the Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing in...

Five Essentials For Planners

By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) industry planners need to factor in the following as they prepare for 2012: 1.) Oil prices are causing demand destruction in the global economy. They could go higher due to the Iranian nuclear crisis. In...

Resolving China's Bad Debts

By John Richardson IS China facing a bad debt crisis as serious, or perhaps even worse, than sub-prime in the US and sovereign debt in Europe? Despite all the bland reassurances the blog keeps hearing from chemical industry executives about the...

The Planning Process Gets Harder

By John Richardson EARLIER this week we talked about the possibility that China might devalue the Yuan rather than allow it to further appreciate. We have since been told by a senior chemicals industry source that this is exactly...

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...

US Chemicals See End Of Profit Boost

By John Richardson THE extent to which the US economy has become distorted in favour of the corporate sector was thrown into sharp relief by this article in the New York Times (the financial sector is another separate, but...

China's Widespread Inventory Problem

By John Richardson THE extent of the inventory overhang in China has become more apparent thanks to a research note from Kunal Agrawal - Singapore-based refining and chemicals analyst with BNP Paribas. Kunal's note - based on a survey...

China Downside Continues To Surprise

  By John Richardson  THE statistics speak for themselves. For example: *The full HSBC August manufacturing index for China, which was released last Friday, showed that manufacturing input costs were rising at their fastest rate for four months, suggesting that...

Limited Help For China's SMEs

By John Richardson THE credit crisis that is limiting chemicals and polymer trade in China is continuing, even though local initiatives have been launched to help small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) with the central government indicating that more help could be...

China's Long-term Shift In Inflation

By John Richardson THE odd chemicals trader who has gone long might well seek to talk-up his or her markets by claiming that the slowdown in China's inflation rate is great news. But nobody interested in anything beyond the sale of...

This Is Not Merely A Rough Patch

By John Richardson IT was interesting to read late last week about how certain chemicals analysts still believe that the big slump in the sector's share prices might merely be a rough patch, possibly just a correction. In this same excellent...

Demand Weakness Dominates

By John Richardson A CAREFUL reading of all the major ICIS pricing reports covering olefins, polyolefins, aromatics and their derivatives over the last few weeks reveals very few mentions of the phrase "peak demand season". This time last year, the...

There Is No Going Back

By John Richardson "IF we build polymer capacity in India the demand will come," a very senior industry executive told the blog last year. He amplified this statement by explaining that greater availability of plastics would always stimulate strong demand...

September Will Be A Cruel Month

By John Richardson SEPTEMBER is going to be a cruel month when the West returns from the summer holiday period and the extent of damage to chemicals and polymer demand becomes more apparent. In Asia, temporary supply constraints in polyolefins, paraxylene (PX) and...

China Inflation Pressure Mounts

By Malini Hariharan The Chinese government's efforts to control inflation are showing no signs of yielding results. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) admitted yesterday that the government was finding it difficult to achieve its full-year inflation target of below...

More On China And Stimulus Hopes

By John Richardson THE fact that the focus has turned to what China might be able to do to once again rescue the global economy reinforces just how important it has become for global growth prospects. For the chemicals...

The US Debt Crisis And Asian Chemicals

By John Richardson THE consequence of either a failure by the US to raise the debt ceiling and/or a downgrading of the country's Triple A debt rating would have obviously have serious consequences for the Asian and global chemicals industries....