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Asian Chemical Connections

China PE Imports: A Long-Term Outlook

  By John Richardson THE chart below is worth revisiting, and pondering again, as we attempt to assess the future of polyethylene (PE) exports to China. In the case of the Middle East, as the chart shows, it has been a case of “so far so good” in 2013. Overall PE import volumes from the […]

Southeast Asia’s Export Dependency

Source: Petroleum Institute of Thailand   By John Richardson THERE is a lot of excitement about the self-sustaining nature of Southeast Asia’s (SEA) economy thanks to, for example, nine consecutive quarters of GDP growth of more than 6% in Indonesia and rising domestic consumption across the region. But, as we discuss in this Insight article […]

China Producer Price Deflation Continues

By John Richardson China’s factory-gate prices have fallen for 14 months in a row because of huge overcapacity in many industries, said the Wall Street Journal in this article. “Producer prices – a measure of prices of goods before they reach consumers – dropped 2.4% in April, the sharpest decline since October, paced by particularly […]

Malaysia’s Economic Challenges

By John Richardson Barisan Nasional (BN) has won Malaysia’s general election although Anwar Ibrahim (see picture on the left), leader of the opposition, has so far refused to concede defeat because he claims that there has been widespread election fraud. Given that the Election Commission is part of the Prime Minister’s office, however, it seems […]

Southeast Asia ‘s Economic Boom

By John Richardson SOUTHEAST (SEA) polyolefins demand grew by 15-20% last year in some of the region’s emerging countries, such as Indonesia, according to a source with a major global producer. Confidence is high as overseas money pours into super-hot property markets in Indonesia and Thailand. In Indonesia, property prices have risen by as much […]

China, Patronage And Innovation

By John Richardson CHINA has to improve innovation if it is to avoid the middle-income trap. Some people assume that success is a given because of China’s great achievement of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty over the last two decades. But rapid industrialisation and infrastructure spending, which were the methods of […]

China’s Internet Decision

By John Richardson CHINA’S polyethylene (PE) market sentiment rebounded in mid-December on greater confidence that the country’s new leaders meant business on economic reform. And since then, commodity prices in general, including those for iron ore  have rebounded thanks to a slew of data that indicates a recovery in growth. Some of the renewed confidence in […]

Social Change And Growth

South Korea and its consumer-driven economy Source of picture:  KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features   By John Richardson MEASURING demand growth cannot involve merely assuming that the future will be the same as the past, as this increasingly complex world continues to tell us. There are a myriad of social, political and environmental factors that will determine the […]

Honestly, Nobody Still Has A Clue

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 […]

China’s Intellectual Property Challenge

Wen Jiabao – stepping down Source of picture: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features    In the last of our series of posts on China’s leadership handover, which begins today as the 18th Party Congress meets, we look at intellectua property rights protection.   By John Richardson WHY bother innovating in China when a state-owned, or state-backed, company is able to steal […]

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