Western central bankers are convinced reflation and economic growth are finally underway as a result of their $14tn stimulus programmes. But the best leading indicator for the global economy – capacity utilisation (CU%) in the global chemical industry – is saying they are wrong. The CU% has an 88% correlation with actual GDP growth, far […]
Chemicals and the Economy
China’s G20 Summit shutdown highlights risks to commodities buying “frenzy”
China’s polyester industry, like many others, is already preparing to shut down ahead of September’s G20 Summit in Hangzhou, to reduce pollution levels. The phenomenon even has its own Wikipedia page, APEC Blue, to describe the moment in November 2014 when Beijing suddenly saw blue sky for the whole of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit meeting. It […]
The Deng, Jiang model for China’s economic growth under Xi
Major change is already underway in China, with potentially enormous implications for all of us. Corruption is being stamped out via a policy of ‘shock and awe’ Similarly, wasteful lending is under attack in both the official and the so-called ‘shadow banking’ sectors Thirdly, pollution is being tackled by literally ‘sending in the bulldozers‘ to […]
From Jiang to Hu and the lost decade
President Jiang Zemin inherited a difficult economic and political situation when taking power in 1993, as did Deng in 1977 and current president Xi last year. Jiang had to set in motion China’s second economic cycle of the post-Mao era, or risk seeing the country fall back into poverty and the political turmoil of another Cultural Revolution. Similarly today, […]
China faces ‘economic restructuring’
A year ago, it was fashionable to claim that the Asian economies had ‘decoupled’ from the West. Any slowdown would simply pass them by. Last December, I noted a rare dissenting voice, Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley, who commented that ‘decoupling is a good story, but its not going to work going forward’. In March, […]
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