By John Richardson JUST as the West was lucky, so was China. The Chinese economy was also buoyed by the Babyboomers, and by its 2001 admission to the World Trade Organisation that enabled it to greatly increase its role as the workshop of the world. This came at the cost of impoverished factory workers, environmental […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Weak PE Margins Reflect Big Picture
By John Richardson BEFORE we look at last week’s political handover in China in more detail tomorrow, while on Friday we will return to our theme of Asian demographics, the above slide illustrates what the big picture has meant for the polyethylene (PE) industry. As you can see, variable-cost margins for Northeast Asian producers fell […]
Polyester Another Victim Of Hype
By John Richardson SEVERAL major petrochemical companies only have one scenario for China, which is that its economy will continue to grow at a rapid rate, the blog has been told by people working for these companies. Similarly, as fellow blogger Paul Hodges pointed out earlier this week, when the great synthetic fibre-chain investment boom was […]
China New Leaders Announced
Xi Jinping addresses the 18th Party Congress Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features By John Richardson CHINA’S new seven-man Politburo Standing Committee was announced today, with the bad news being that five of its members are thought to be either conservative or cautiously conservative. The country needs reformers. The top job of party chief and putative […]
Indonesia’s “Great Moderation”
Graph prepared by The Economist By John Richardson INDONESIA has enjoyed eight consecutive quarters of 6% GDP growth and so – along with several other mainly domestically-demand driven Asian economies – is viewed as a haven of stability in an increasingly uncertain world. The country’s 2012 demand growth for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) […]
China Lending Declines In October
By John Richardson POLITICS, politics and politics are three most important factors that need to be evaluated when assessing the direction of China’s economy. Thus, in the short term it appears that the surge in bank lending from May to September might well have been to create the illusion of a robust economy ahead of the […]
Asian PE Recovery On “China Turning Point”
By John Richardson ASIAN polyethylene (PE) prices rose by $10-30/tonne for the week ending 9 November in response to reports of low inventories, according to ICIS. A further improvement in the market is anticipated by one trader, as a result of the release of raft of positive Chinese economic data last Friday. This is based on the […]
China: Consumption And Hot Air
Source: New York Times By John Richardson TALK of a billion plus Western-style consumers is nothing more than hot air, with the temperature maintained by the financial sector eager to sell you its products. The reality is very different, as this article from the New York Times describes. In the third of our series […]
The BRICS Fallacy
By John Richardson THE above chart, from a new Research Note released by fellow blogger Paul Hodges, exposes the fallacy that BRICS and emerging-market growth can by themselves rescue the global economy. And, as we have highlighted before on this blog, there are no long-term guarantees that China, the big driver of BRICS growth, will continue […]
China Leadership: Nobody Has A Clue
By John Richardson THE blog has spent a great deal of time talking to lots of people, and reading everything it can get its hands on, concerning China’s leadership handover and has reached one overwhelming conclusion: Nobody has a clue. The comforting, easy analysis is that the once-in-a-decade handover will be handled smoothly – and […]
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