By John Richardson THE above chart indicates that the reformers have regained influence in China: Whilst new loans from state-owned banks in May beat analysts’ expectations by a big distance, total social financing (TSF), which is the measure of all forms of new lending, was substantially down compared with the previous month. The reason for lower […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Complexity: The Wrong And Right Kind Of Spending
China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative – the right kind of spending By John Richardson SOME people might too quickly assume that last week saw yet more evidence of the reformers and anti-reformers within the Chinese government pulling in different directions. This was seen to follow on from the Q1 2016 growth of […]
Oil At $25 Or Even Lower By The End Of This Year
By John Richardson AS most people react like a rabbit caught in a car headlight to the latest collapse in crude-oil prices, they need to take note of this: The long term average price of oil, adjusted for inflation, is only $33 a barrel. Why were so many misled into thinking that the natural price […]
Expect More Volatility, Uncertainty As China Reforms Continue
By John Richardson MOST Asian stock markets took a hammering on Wednesday because of the sharp decline in Chinese equities. So did commodity markets, as my colleague Nigel Davis pointed out in this Insight article when he wrote: Copper prices hit new 2015 lows, iron ore futures were down sharply. Plastics futures prices plunged on […]
China Stock Markets Were Never A “Magic Pill”
By John Richardson THE good news is that only an estimated one in 15 Chinese people at the very most trade in stocks compared with more than half of Americans. But the bad news is that this one in 15 is higher than it was around a year ago, when China’s stock markets first began […]
China’s Latest Interest Rate Cut: The Essential Context
By John Richardson CHINA lowered interest rates for the third time in six months on Sunday in a further attempt to limit the damage caused by economic reforms. The two earlier rate cuts, and February’s reduction in the bank reserve-requirement ratio, were also about limiting the pain resulting from the boldest, most risky set of economic […]
China Jan-Feb Polyethylene Imports Fall 22%
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyethylene (PE) imports declined again in February, and are down by an average of 22% over both January and February of this year compared with the same period in 2014. SOME people will tell you that this is nothing to be seriously worried about. They will argue that January-February 2014, imports reached […]
China Petrochemicals In 2015: Five More Predictions
By John Richardson HERE are five more predictions for China’s petrochemicals markets during 2015: 1.) Polyethylene, polypropylene (PP), phenol, purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) will be just some of the products that will see declines in imports on rising self-sufficiency and a further slowdown in the local economy. As an example, the […]
China’s Demand For Lending In Steep Decline
By John Richardson WHEN the demand for lending in any economy starts to decline, you know that the people who make up that economy have an understanding that things are likely to get worse before they get better. Hence, chemicals and other companies need to take note of the latest survey from the People’s Bank […]
China’s July Lending Underlines The Real Direction
By John Richardson WHEN there was a big year-on-year surge in China’s lending in June some commentators took this is an indication that Beijing was going soft on its economic reform programme. Instead it seemed more likely at that time that, as the whack-a-mole game continued, another few moles had popped up via the shadow […]
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