By John Richardson CHINA’s polypropylene (PP) market has been consistently described as subdued throughout this year. End-users in China have persistently complained, throughout the year, of credit shortages as a result of China’s economic reforms and so their resin buying patterns have been sporadic and hand-to-mouth. How do we therefore explain the above chart, which shows a […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s Polypropylene Imports: The Balance Of Probabilities
CHINA’S polypropylene (PP) imports increased by 11.3% in January-April of this year compared with the same period in 2013, according to the latest available China customs data. There could be lots of reasons for this. One reason might be that the fairly subdued tone of just about everybody you speak to in markets is wrong […]
China’s “Whack-A-Mole” Game Continues
By John Richardson THE blog loves playing the the “whack-a-mole game” in our local arcade. How it works is that every time a plastic mole pops up, you have to try and whack it back down with a hammer in order to win points. Moles just keep popping up, no matter how frantically you deploy […]
China Consumer Confidence “The Worst In 17 Years”
By John Richardson LAST year, the blog was told that business at some high-end restaurants in Beijing had fallen by as much as 90% because of the government’s crackdown on corruption. And China’s top military officials are scared to even park their cars in the vicinity of high-end restaurants in case they are accused of […]
China’s Evolving Autos Market: What It Means For PP
By John Richardson THE tide of credit that lifted all boats in China meant that chemicals company CEOs could get away with clichés such as “the rise of the middle classes” and “increasing urbanisation” and later point to strong sales figures as support for their arguments. But now the CEOs are going to have to […]
China Faces Lower Growth In Q2
By John Richardson WE conducted another of our highly unscientific surveys amongst polyethylene (PE) producers and traders last week and the message remained the same: Persistently weaker-than-expected downstream demand in China. “Many downstream plastics processors have seen persistently weak orders for plastics finished and semi-finished goods,” added the commentary accompanying the ICIS pricing polypropylene (PP) […]
China’s New Stimulus Package: What It Means For Chemicals
By John Richardson CHINA’S petrochemicals markets are likely to enjoy a confidence rally as a result of yesterday’s announcement of a mini economic stimulus package. The details of the stimulus package include: More railway construction. The State Council released plans on Wednesday to sell $24 billion US of bonds this year to build railways in […]
China And Re-examining Your Customers
In the first part of a two-part series on how chemicals companies need to respond to China’s economic reforms, we look at the “account receivables” challenge. Tomorrow we will look at new growth opportunities. By John Richardson AS China’s credit wind down continues, and its overall economic reforms accelerate, chemicals companies need to look […]
Take Away The China “Froth” And What’s Left?
By John Richardson THE denial that we discussed last week is still very much in evidence. For example, we heard the argument over the last few days that China’s economic slowdown would involve only “a couple of bad quarters” and then China, and Asia-Pacific markets in general, would be back to normal. The following two […]
Nothing “Disappointing” About China Data
By John Richardson CHINA’S credit growth in 2014 would have to be higher than that of last year if GDP growth is going to hit 7.5%. But in February, as Reuters wrote in this article: “China’s total social financing, a broad measure of credit in the economy, increased by 938.7 billion Yuan ($US152.9bn) in February, […]
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