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Asian Chemical Connections

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) […]

US Oil: Nothing Is Uncertain As Certainty

By John Richardson ALL of yesterday’s excitement about the US overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia by 2017 to become the world’s biggest oil producer – and exceeding Russia to become the world’s biggest gas producer by 2015 – needs to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. The release of the International Energy […]

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 […]

The Suspension Has Gone

By John Richardson WHAT a week it’s been when, of course, politics has trumped everything else and has challenged the view of those who believe that demand will take care of itself. Demand did take care of itself during the Supercycle, but that is now over for good. China no longer has the comfort blanket of […]

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 […]

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 […]

Tackling The SOEs

“The state advances as the private sector retreats…” The table below shows the size of China state-owned enterprises versus some other corporate giants. Source of table: The Economist. ICBC is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.    By John Richardson In the second of our series of blog posts ahead of this week’s 18th […]

China Leadership Challenges

Xi Jinping, China’s likely new president KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features By John Richardson The make-up of China’s new politburo will be announced during the 18th Party Congress, which starts on 8 November. But don’t expect confirmation of the new leadership team to do anything to address doubts over the country’s long-term economic direction. China will remain in what political and economic […]

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