By John Richardson MUCH ballyhoo greeted last week’s launch of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone – an eleven-square-mile experiment in economic liberalisation on the outskirts of the city. Comparisons have been drawn with 33 years ago, when Deng Xiaoping set up the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone as an antidote to the poverty and economic […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Construction Drives China 2013 PE Growth
By John Richardson THE blog has been banging its head against a brick wall for several months now in an an effort to fully explain why polyethylene (PE) apparent demand growth has been so strong during most of 2013. Interviews with well over 20 producers, traders, end-users and market analysts (to be honest, we have […]
China And The New IPCC Report
By John Richardson THE blog isn’t a scientist and it has also often discussed the dangers of another consensus view: That the global economy will return to the Old Normal. Nevertheless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now said that there is a 95% chance that human activity is causing climate change, drawing […]
New Consensus Builds On Ethylene Supply Gap
By John Richardson THERE seems to be a new consensus emerging over an ethylene capacity addition shortage between 2013 and 2017. Many of the projects that are supposed to come on-stream during that period will either be delayed, or perhaps might even be cancelled, think a growing number of people. The future of some of […]
Malaysia Reform Complacency And The Fed
By John Richardson REFORM complacency could well be one of the harmful results for Asia ex-China of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) decision not to taper quantitative easing any time very soon, financial analysts have warned. “While we could see short-term relief in places like Turkey and India, the risk is that policymakers will […]
The Hedgehog And The Fox
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 […]
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 PE Demand Increases Further
By John Richardson THE great polyethylene (PE) mystery hunt continues. As the chart above shows, China’s apparent PE demand (imports plus domestic production) grew by 14% in January-July 2013 compared with the same period in 2011, according to Global Trade Information Services and official government data. This compares with a 13% increase recorded for January-June […]
Every Time You Dip Your Toe In The Water…
By John Richardson EVERY time you dip your toe in the water the political temperature in China can feel a little different. For instance, in this article in the New York Times, published on 19 July, the newspaper wrote: “Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a sombre, secretive warning issued […]
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 […]
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