By John Richardson WE ALREADY know that forecasting Chinese polyethylene (PE) demand growth based on multiples of GDP doesn’t work. This is almost certainly the case with all the other polymers. As discussed last week, the problem starts with the forecasts for GDP growth. They will be inflated for political reasons. A new Brookings Institution […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China PP Production Up 23% As Self-Sufficiency Drive Continues
By John Richardson THE above chart provides further support for the argument I have been making for the last three years – that China’s future growth in petrochemicals capacity, and how this new capacity will operate, is not just about Western notions of economics. There is an awful lot more to this story than people […]
Managing China’s Middle Income Aspirations
Finding a way through…. Traffic in Shanghai. Picture: Rex Features By John Richardson WHEN the blog first visited China in the late 1990s, it travelled around Beijing in a fruitless and naive attempt to get people to really talk about everyday life. Last week was the complete opposite during our visit to Beijing and Shanghai. People initiated conversations […]
China’s Graduates
China graduates at a job fair in Chongqing in November 2012 Source of picture: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex Features By John Richardson CHINA sometimes seems like several different countries from the super-rich elite to the middle classes whose average annual disposable income is less than the cost of one square metre of an apartment in Beijing to […]
China Inland Boom: Who Will Benefit?
By John Richardson This fascinating article in The Economist raises further important questions about the impact on petrochemicals of changing migration patterns. Last week, we discussed how what industry executives had been discussing for three years has finally happened: Severe labour shortages in the southern and eastern provinces post-Lunar New Year, preventing chemicals and polymer […]
Jump to page: