Confidence along all the chemicals value chains is always a key issue because of the ability to aggressively manage inventories, according to the London-based chemicals analyst Paul Satchell. So there’s the ever-present risk of sudden and very disruptive de-stocking. The longer the current rallies in commodity prices and stock markets continue, the greater might be […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Micro-management gone too far?
micro-management, human resources, APIC, commodity chemicals, CEOs, credit control, financial meltdown
If manufacturers started buying up their suppliers….
This excellent article from The Economist about vertical integration got me thinking that if, say, auto makers start buying up parts suppliers in developed markets (in developing markets the plastics processing industry is too fragmented) we could end up facing a whole new set of industry dynamics. Buying up your supplier, or at least offering […]
How to make money in a downturn Part 1
John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale, antidumping petitions, trade protection, living in cloud cuckoo land
Uncle Karl is back in fashion
Karl Marx, The Miner’s Strike, Margaret Thatcher, Thatcherism, capitalism, financial meltdown
Japan’s corporate hero
manga, Japanese conformism, losing face, Lost Decade
History will surely repeat itself
The mood at the recent NPRA International Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio, Texas, was mixed, despite all the economic gloom. Some producers said they were still making money – especially those selling into manufacturing sectors benefiting from a rise in exports due to the weak dollar. What’s certain, of course, though is that things will […]
Here we go again – 1997 is back…..
I sincerely hope not, but all the signs are there because of: *A financial crisis which nobody again saw coming, this time with global implications *What could prove to be too much spending on new equipment and capacity. This time high equity prices have paid for these investments rather than US dollar-denominated bank loans, as […]
Japanese gloom builds as earnings fall
Yet more gloom – the world’s second-biggest economy appears to be slowing down as the effects of the sub-prime crisis spread. What will this mean for Japan’s chemical industry, which in the first half of the current financial year suffered badly from the highly cylical electronic chemicals sector? All will, of course, hinge on the […]
Could China be the new Japan?
Quite possibly not, according to a Deutsche Bank report. However, as the report makes the clear, the same types of imbalances are building in the Chinese economy which led to Japan’s “Lost Decade” of the 1990s. Time to take stock and have a contingency plan?
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