Home Blogs Asian Chemical Connections

Asian Chemical Connections

China And The Need To Keep On Digging

Sources: ICIS Consulting, World Bank and China’s NBS   By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) demand growth in China during 2007-2012 was essentially a story of: Firstly, excessive stimulus which compensated for the global financial crisis. And then from April 2011 up until the third quarter of 2012, a reduction in stimulus as the Chinese government […]

Anxiety Builds Over China Growth

Will growth spread quickly enough? Source of picture: www.oraclemarketplace.co.uk       By John Richardson Global chemicals production had returned to 2006 levels by October of this year, according to this slide ACCProduction09Versus06.ppt from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Worldwide chemicals growth rates might not return to 2008 levels until 2012, Jurgen Hambrecht, CEO of BASF, warned […]

All At Stake And At Sea For October

A bit like the fund managers who are anxious to keep the equities rallies going until the end of the year in order to protect bonuses, there must be a lot of petrochemicals people hoping pricing in our sector will stay equally firm. Perhaps, though, these hopes will be more inspired by job preservation rather […]

Correction On China Economy Piece

I thought I would publish Michael Pettis’s reply to my piece yesterday here rather than approve as a comment: Good piece but one correction. I don’t think 8-9% growth this year and next is impossible. On the contrary, I think that if the government keeps up its stimulus they can force high levels of growth […]

China’s consumption growth challenge

“China, please please do what we did and spend what you might not be able to afford…” Source of picture: The Daily Maily Whether or not China’s pace of economic recovery will be maintained would have become an intensely boring topic of discussion if it wasn’t so important for all our livelihoods. More data specific […]

Falling China license plates a lead indicator?

Source of picture: Chinaenvironmentallaw.com Talk around the water-cooler in Shanghai offices at the moment is the fall in the cost of a car-license plate in September to a lowest bid of Yuan 27,000 ($3,953) from around Yuan 36,000 in August. “It surprised everyone because the forecast had been for the price to actually go up […]

What’s China’s real consumption growth?

Source of picture: millermmccune.com How quickly is China shifting its economy away from exports towards stronger domestic consumption? The answer to this question is, of course, critical to the global chemicals industry. On the surface it looks good: Retail sales grew by 16.6% in the first half of 2009 and by a slightly more modest […]

Jump to page: