By John Richardson IN the good old days everybody could very easily export just about all their surplus chemicals and polymers volumes to China for two very obvious reasons. Firstly, even real GDP growth, never mind the fabricated government numbers, was nearly always close to or actually in double digits. And secondly, China was short of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s New “For Profit” Chemicals Industry? Think Again….
By John Richardson IF you think that running a chemicals company in China can be compared to running one in the West then please take a look at the above chart. This is an updated version of a chart Paul Hodges and I have run on Sinopec in the past, which includes the full-year 2014 […]
China Peak Manufacturing Season Disappoints
By John Richardson THE chemicals industry, because it supplies so many downstream manufacturing industries, is an excellent early indicator when something is going right or wrong with an economy. Take note, therefore, of the July Volume Proxy, which was published earlier this week by Paul Satchell, chemicals analyst with UK investment bank Cannacord Genuity (the […]
China’s Official View On New Stimulus
By John Richardson THE mood has improved in China’s chemicals markets over the last few days thanks to strong indications from Beijing that a new economic stimulus package is about to be launched. But, as we predicted yesterday, any such package will not be anything like the giant 2008-2009 stimulus package, or even that of […]
China Urbanisation Complications
By John Richardson EVERY time you come back to the subject of China, it becomes ever-more complex and uncertain. An excellent example is an article published in the academic journal, Eurasian Geography and Economics, in February, by University of Washington professor Kam Wing Chan. It questions to what extent China’s economy will benefit from further […]
China petchem imports soar on false confidence
They always say the best form of flattery is immitation and so thanks to my colleague Paul Hodges for this graph indicating a huge surge in China’s polyethylene imports – courtesy of data from Edwin Pang of Credit Suisse. I agree with Paul in the latest post on his blog, Chemicals & The Economy, that […]
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