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By John Richardson SUPPLY-CHAIN problems continue to disrupt the global chemicals and polymer industries more than two years since the pandemic
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Following my post last week on my latest outlook for China’s polypropylene (PP) demand and net imports in 2022, see below my latest predictions
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By John Richardson THERE IS NOT MUCH point in carrying out economic stimulus if people can’t spend the extra money. This is the dilemma China faces
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By John Richardson SO MUCH, PERHAPS, for the theory that if the US suffers no outages on the scale of 2021, we will this year see a surge in
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By John Richardson WE ARE LIVING in a much more complex polyolefins world where every decision you make over the remainder of this year will require
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By John Richardson OFFICIALLY, China’s GDP grew by a healthy 4.8% in Q1 2022 on a year-on-year basis. This would put China more in less in line to
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By John Richardson FEW PEOPLE HAVE made money out of shorting China. Time and time again, brief periods of weak economic growth have been followed
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By John Richardson WHEN THE GOING gets tough, the tough must get going. It will not be easy to estimate what could be higher-than-expected levels of
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By John Richardson AHA! I had another of those light bulb moments yesterday after a dozen or so calls, including one to our excellent ICIS pricing
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By John Richardson SOME ECONOMISTS MIGHT need to get out a little more rather than spend time poring over data, such as the recent inversion of the
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By John Richardson WE HAVE BEEN here before, of course. In April 2020, pessimism abounded about China’s growth prospects that turned out to be
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By John Richardson MANY OF US HAVE only known a world of ever-more open borders and rapidly growing consumption of all the stuff made from
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By John Richardson ONE DAY brings hope, the next day disappointment and rising concerns about the conflict spreading –- and the next day hope
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By John Richardson WHEN CORONAVIRUS first became a pandemic, I flagged- up that government intervention would play a critical role in shaping
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THE GLOBAL FOOD crisis is first and foremost a potential humanitarian disaster that must be avoided. But “must” doesn’t mean “will”, of