Tag Archives: China

Australian Wool Prices Decline Due to Weak Demand

Guest Post - May 20, 2013 1:27 PM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters welcomes another guest post from Nick Smith of Mintec. Australian wool prices have fallen in recent months, weighed down by weak demand. Prices have dropped off by 15% since the start of the year. Australia and China are the world’s largest producers of wool, each accounting for around 20% of global production. However, Australia is by far the largest exporter of unprocessed wool, accounting for around half of world exports. Despite being one of the largest producers, China is also the largest importer of wool fiber as low labor costs have led the country to become the world’s [...]

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US Skim Milk Powder Prices Poised to Rise

Guest Post - May 6, 2013 1:39 PM | Categories: Industry News

Spend Matters welcomes another guest post from Mark Kozlowski of Mintec. Skim milk powder (SMP) prices have recently surged in New Zealand in response to poor domestic milk production and firm demand for SMP from emerging markets such as China. US SMP prices, which historically have closely mimicked New Zealand prices, have not yet reacted to this supply/demand situation, but could they also be heading in the same direction? SMP is the world’s fourth most produced dairy product after cheese, butter and whole milk powder. It is a key ingredient in baby formula, chocolate, bakery products, animal feed and many [...]

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China’s Trade Rules and Subsidies: Down the Stainless Drain (Part 2)

Jason Busch - April 23, 2013 10:04 AM | Categories: Commentary

There’s a fundamental question regarding who are the winners and losers in trade cases in which governments subsidize the cost of production and/or offer direct tax or pricing incentives to exporters. MetalMiner asked Elkay’s Kathleen Deighan about this very issue in a recent interview. We present excerpts below (for the full interview, please click on the MetalMiner link):  MetalMiner: Buying organizations [often falsely] believe these trade cases to be extremely negative for them and for the ultimate consumer because prices end up increasing. What arguments do you make to explain to buying organizations that over the longer term, it’s in their [...]

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China’s Trade Rules and Subsidies: Down the Stainless Drain (Part 1)

Jason Busch - April 22, 2013 8:01 AM | Categories: Commentary

In an earlier installment in this series, we examined some of the philosophical underpinnings of why those who care about free markets should also care about preserving them in dealing with those attempting to manipulate the rules for their own gain. In this installment, we turn our attention to bringing the topic alive through a recent anti-dumping case that our sister site MetalMiner recently covered. The context for this coverage is that “Elkay Manufacturing recently ‘won’ [against China on the] …. anti-dumping front (with the International Trade Commission [ITC] approving considerable duties on stainless steel sinks.” The ruling cited “unlawful [...]

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Supporting the Free Market Against Chinese Manipulation

Jason Busch - April 18, 2013 8:09 AM | Categories: Commentary

In my Frederick Hayek inspired youth, I used to believe that unrestrained free trade was the only barrier between capitalist democracies and all the branches of protectionist “isms” in the world – socialism, communism, fascism, etc. My argument at the time was that trade of all sorts exposed inefficiencies within supply chains and would force those less competitive (for various reasons that might include high-cost labor, lower quality, production inefficiency, etc.) to improve or go out of business. Commercial Darwinism, if you will. If every company and country played on the same playing field, with the same rule set, this [...]

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Breaking China’s Stranglehold on Rare Earths

Guest Post - April 8, 2013 1:35 PM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters welcomes a guest post from Vajid Idrees of Mintec. I wrote about rare earth metals (REMs) back in November 2012, highlighting both the world’s dependence on Chinese production and the fact that the Chinese government’s export policies were constraining world supply. What has changed since then? Well, China is still the global leader, producing around 90% of the world’s REMs, with the remainder being produced by the US, Australia, India, Malaysia, Brazil and a few others. But after China announced its export quota system, countries such as the US and Japan began actively looking for other suppliers. As [...]

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Pulp Margins Dissolve in China

Guest Post - April 1, 2013 1:43 PM | Categories: Industry News

Spend Matters welcomes a guest post by Monika Sosnowska of Mintec. Pulp prices have risen steadily over the past 6 months and look set to rise further in the coming months. Since the start of 2013, we have seen above inflationary increase across the globe, with prices rising by 4.3%, 4.0% and 5.4% in Europe, US and China respectively. Packaging demand typically increases in the first half of a calendar year as building and construction industries ramp up and seasonal crops are harvested and packaged. In addition to these standard factors, China has started an anti-dumping investigation into imported dissolving [...]

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Market Cottons on to Decreased Planting Intentions

Guest Post - February 25, 2013 2:41 PM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters welcomes a guest post from Nick Smith of Mintec. New predictions of decreased US cotton planting for the upcoming 2013/2014 season has resulted in rising prices in the US. Stable cotton prices in China, however, have led to a slight reduction in Chinese cotton’s premium over US cotton. Cotton has been cultivated for thousands of years and is grown all around the world. It accounts for around 40% of the fiber market in the US, and cotton cultivation takes up 2.5% of the world’s total available arable land. In 2011, as production and stock levels fell, demand outstripped availability, leading to [...]

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China Tries to Hack Spend Matters Network Site MetalMiner

Jason Busch - February 12, 2013 11:04 AM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters Network site MetalMiner has joined the illustrative company of the New York Times, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal to be targeted for hack attacks from China. MetalMiner Editor Taras Berezowsky notes in a somewhat cheeky piece that, “China has already attempted to hack MetalMiner, with lukewarm results … After noticing hacking attempts into both MetalMiner.com and MetalMinerIndX.com, we had to take specific blocking measures to thwart the Chinese IP addresses.” Of course we’re not entirely sure the exact reason for the Chinese intrusion. Taras jokingly questions, if the hackers had been successful, “would they have stumbled upon [...]

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The China Spend Management Question Mark

Jason Busch - December 30, 2005 3:12 AM | Categories: China, Spend Management

Along with scores of economists and traders, I’m a constant observer of the Chinese economy. In 2006, China will continue to be under constant review, especially from a Spend Management perspective. But nothing is certain. Earlier this year, I posted a number of blog entries on the Yuan and revaluation. You can read one of them here. Outside of the currency issue, other factors that could impact China strategies for companies in 2006 include domestic Chinese growth, commodity price variability, local wages, global transportation and shipping costs, the rise of India, the preservation of IP, and regionally stability (from Taiwan [...]

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