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 […]
Asian Chemical Connections
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 […]
Water Shortages to Scupper China CTO Industry
By John Richardson THE debate about how exactly how much coal-to-olefins (CTO) capacity China will add has been largely around the economics of the process versus that of naphtha cracking. In terms of capital costs, building a CTO complex costs 1.5-2 times more than constructing a naphtha cracker, according to our colleagues at CBI […]
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 […]
Europe’s Rubbish Solution
By John Richardson SHALE gas may never be a significant energy solution for Europe because the political challenges are just too great, as this article in the Financial Times points out.For example, the FT writes that: Fracking is banned in France and the Netherlands. The Dutch government scrapped a parliamentary proposal to allow fracking […]
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 […]
More Great News On China
Pollution over eastern China Source of picture: Wikimedia By John Richardson IT wasn’t the kind of news that China’s polyethylene (PE) traders wanted to reflect on over the weekend. On Friday, China’s cabinet – the State Council – announced that it had adopted 10 measures designed to improve air quality. “Many of the measures […]
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