By John Richardson ONE of the reasons why China’s polyethylene (PE) demand growth has been below the increase in overall GDP for most of the years since 2006 has been the relatively weak performance of the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As the state has advanced, the private sector has retreated because most of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s Divided Authority
Source: The Economist By John Richardson ONE of the blog’s Indian friends said last week, as he worries about his country’s political failings: “I sometimes wish were more like China, where, when the Politburo says ‘do this’ it is done. “Here we, perhaps, have an excess of democracy. If we want to get a […]
China’s Shadow Banking Problem
By John Richardson IN the best of all possible worlds, more than a billion people in the emerging markets will become a great deal richer over the next few decades. As a result, they will be able to much more easily afford all of the things made from, or containing, chemicals and polymers – such […]
Wen’s Last Reform Push
By John Richardson Wen Jiabao has been at it again. His extraordinarily strong comments on Tuesday follow those he made last month about the risks of a return to the economic chaos of the Cultural Revolution. On this latest occasion, he has taken aim at the state-owned banks. China’s premier, who is to relinquish power […]
“Known Unknowns” And China
By John Richardson IF the blog had a dollar for every time we had read reports about Chinese growth being constantly buoyed by rising domestic income levels and increasing urbanisation, we would probably be as rich as a mid-level executive in a state-owned enterprise (in other words, very rich – way beyond such an executive’s […]
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