By John Richardson Are there more hedgehogs in the chemicals industry than foxes? This thought came to the blog after meetings with industry executives this week during its latest visit to Singapore. Bear with us and we will, we promise, as quickly as possible get to the point. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin, in his famous […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Becoming A Chef In Indonesia
An Italian restaurant in Jakarta By John Richardson ELEVEN-year-old Nurafidah spends her mornings at school and her afternoons hunting for recyclable plastic, aluminium and glass in Jakarta’s giant rubbish dump – Bantar Gebang. She wants to grow up to be a chef. “She is not alone. Many children of the dump are sure they […]
China’s Balancing Act: Reforming Land Rights And Hukou
Xi Jinping By John Richardson THE good health of China’s economy and the future of the Communist Party depend on giving farmers individual land-ownership rights and allowing equal rights for migrants in cities, an official from a leading Beijing-based government think tank told Bloomberg in this article. “Land and hukou reform is the cornerstone […]
Malaysia: Taking The Long View
Source: Malaysia Petrochemicals Association By John Richardson THE problems in Malaysia have been evident for a long time. But thanks to the irresponsible and failed actions of the US Fed, the flow of funds into the Southeast country had led to a papering-over of the cracks in its economic growth model. The same, as […]
Without The Benefit Of Time
Victorian Britain (Source of picture: Wikimedia) By John Richardson LIFE in China can be grim, much as it was in Britain during its industrial development. In China, according to The Economist: A tenth of the country’s […]
Politics, Politics And More Politics
By John Richardson CHINA’s extraordinary economic growth is, of course, largely the result of state-led investment in low-value manufacturing. But, as we discussed in chapter 10 of our book, Boom, Gloom & The New Normal, China now needs a new growth model if it is to escape the middle-income trap, as defined by the West […]
3D Printing: The New Industrial Revolution
By John Richardson MANUFACTURING via 3D printing could result in an industrial revolution as big as that which occurred in 1766 with the invention of the spinning jenny (see above). “The pedal-powered machine allowed a single person to spin eight cotton threads at a time rather than just one,” wrote James Grubber in this edition […]
It Is Just Too Difficult
Smart bottles By John Richardson THERE is a growing concern amongst some polyolefin industry executives that, despite the economic problems first in China and now India, there is still a great deal of enthusiasm for adding new capacity, as we discuss in this ICIS Insight article. “Now that China has weakened, everybody has switched […]
The 10th ICIS Innovation Awards
The deadline of 3 July is closing in fast for entries to the 10th ICIS Innovation Awards, designed to reward innovation, environmental advances and sustainability in the global chemical industry. If you want a chance to win extensive coverage in ICIS Chemical Business and receive industry-wide recognition for your hard-won innovations as they enter the […]
China, Patronage And Innovation
By John Richardson CHINA has to improve innovation if it is to avoid the middle-income trap. Some people assume that success is a given because of China’s great achievement of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty over the last two decades. But rapid industrialisation and infrastructure spending, which were the methods of […]
Jump to page: