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Asian Chemical Connections

China And Demographics

OUR last four blog posts have focused on some of the big challenges confronting China’s economy over the next 12-18 months. Today we again switch our focus to how major changes in demographics could adversely impact longer-term growth prospects.   By John Richardson CONTINUING high rates of urbanisation are constantly cited by chemical industry executives […]

China’s Demographic Crisis

                      Chinese govt poster promoting the one-child policy       By John Richardson IF all you can remember is strong emerging markets growth, then it is easy to be misled into only building into your scenarios the notion that China and India are merely pausing for economic breath. Conventional wisdom remains that this is, decidedly, the […]

A Call To Action

We are about to set out on a great journey as the world transitions to the New Normal. The reason for the journey is that the world economy has changed irrevocably as a result of the financial crisis and the demand changes created by the ageing of the Western BabyBoomers. There is no going back. […]

France’s Difficult Future

By John Richardson Francois Hollande, who has the won the French presidential election, talks about cutting the retirement age to 60 from 62 for people who have worked for 41 years. This is a handy slogan for an election campaign. But European pension liabilities suggest that people should be working until they are older, rather […]

A Road Map For Success

The new chapter of our free ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal’ ebook sets out a road map to success for companies in the New Normal. It also identifies 5 key areas where major change is already underway. Demand-driven. Markets have essentially been supply-driven in recent decades, with growth being forecast on the basis of […]

New Policies Needed To Restore Growth

Politicians seem to be floundering as they seek to restore growth to the Western economy. Their prescriptions swing between austerity and economic stimulus as they argue over what has gone wrong. But in chapter 10 of our Boom, Gloom & The New Normal e-book we argue that they are on the wrong track. They are […]

US Petchems: The Bigger Picture

By John Richardson Access to cheap feedstock, access to cheap feedstock and access to cheap feedstock might seem like the three most-important elements to any petrochemicals strategy. Thus, for many in the US, adding capacity based on abundant and therefore low-cost ethane, thanks to the shale-gas revolution, adds up. US ethylene capacity could be increased by […]

Morgan Stanley Bullish Again

By John Richardson MORGAN Stanley has once again produced a very bullish forecast for China’s polyethylene (PE) market. The investment bank was famous for devising the SuperCycle theory in late 2010. It failed to take into account clear signs that 2011 was going to be a bad year. Version 2.0 of its bullish view on the industry assumes that 2011 was so […]

America’s New Political Era

What follows is likely to be of little interest to those, like ourselves, who are obsessed by the week-by-week price of polyethylene (PE). But a strong US economy is essential for a healthy global chemicals industry, and what is being attempted right now to revive America doesn’t appear to be working. Happy New Year to […]

When I’m 64

Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? The Beatles asked the right questions back in 1967, when singing ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ on their iconic Sergeant Pepper album. What would happen to the Western BabyBoomers when they became 64? Would they be about to die, as had been the case with previous generations? […]

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