By John Richardson WHY sacrifice national or regional growth for the sake of freer global trade? This is a question the blog has been asking itself since the breakthrough last week at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Bali. This follows our earlier thoughts on how regional trading blocs may become much more significant. […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Less Rather Than More Petchems Free Trade
By John Richardson A LOT of the talk at this year’s GPCA conference in Dubai was of the need for more free trade in petrochemicals. There seems to be a risk that as more countries develop refinery and petrochemicals businesses, free trade will decline rather than increase. Creating and protecting jobs will, surely, be a […]
China’s Overshadowing Economic Importance
By John Richardson AS we head into this weekend’s crucial November plenum , it is worth remembering that there is no chemicals and polymers market to compare with China’s in volume terms anywhere else in Asia. Take polyproplyene (PP) as just one example. Industry estimates are that China’s consumption totalled around 16m tonnes in 2012. Its […]
Grangemouth Viewed Through A Wider Lens
By John Richardson THROUGH the narrow lens of stand-alone cost competitiveness, the threatened refinery and petrochemicals complex in Grangemouth, Scotland the UK, (see picture) can be viewed as having a very questionable long-term future. For example, Britain’s refineries are viewed as small, old and lacking in sophistication. And it can be argued that they are […]
Malaysia’s Scary Investment And Spending Bubbles
Source: http://www.globalpropertyguide.com By John Richardson Will this time really be different in Southeast Asia? Everyone hopes so. But the arguments put forward by economist Jesse Colombo back in January – about investment bubbles building up across the region – served as an early warning that it is possible we are heading for another economic crisis […]
New Consensus Builds On Ethylene Supply Gap
By John Richardson THERE seems to be a new consensus emerging over an ethylene capacity addition shortage between 2013 and 2017. Many of the projects that are supposed to come on-stream during that period will either be delayed, or perhaps might even be cancelled, think a growing number of people. The future of some of […]
Malaysia Reform Complacency And The Fed
By John Richardson REFORM complacency could well be one of the harmful results for Asia ex-China of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) decision not to taper quantitative easing any time very soon, financial analysts have warned. “While we could see short-term relief in places like Turkey and India, the risk is that policymakers will […]
Selling To The Base Of The Pyramid
By John Richardson As the slide above slows, some four billion of the world’s population earn very low incomes indeed. It would be tempting to give up trying to sell to these people, as, from a Western chemicals and polymers producers perspective, the effort might not seem worth the meagre returns. But as this fascinating […]
Becoming A Chef In Indonesia
An Italian restaurant in Jakarta By John Richardson ELEVEN-year-old Nurafidah spends her mornings at school and her afternoons hunting for recyclable plastic, aluminium and glass in Jakarta’s giant rubbish dump – Bantar Gebang. She wants to grow up to be a chef. “She is not alone. Many children of the dump are sure they […]
Asia Ex-China: The Outlook For 2014 And Beyond
By John Richardson IN a special series of blog posts over the next few weeks we will re-examine the outlook for the major Asian petrochemical producing countries, ex-China. The posts won’t necessarily appear every day, as important news events may require immediate analysis, but our aim is to finish the series by mid-October. Last month, […]
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