Driving Domestic Demand, Not an Empty Advocacy Only


An inevitable, periodical economic recession is coming globally. People must have learned many experiences from the historical crisis, but were still shocked by the current one, by its sharp setback from a high growth extreme. Governors are busy in raising proposal of saving economy. China's leaders and economists recognized the importance of driving domestic demands today. Spurring package has been announced one by one. Credit root is loosed, construction on railway is actually accelerated, alternative energies are encouraged to develop, renovation on the outdated health care mechanism may be started soon, government's actions can be easily found from the housing and stock markets, support and help are supplying to farmers, and so on. Driving China's domestic demand will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the world economy, agreed by many local economists. Once the consuming ability of more than 1 billion farmers is eventually enhanced, a real engine for economy will be formed.  
   As a chemical player, are you ready for the coming crisis? While feeling fears amid global economic downturn, most managers may consider more on how to be a winner in the turmoil, just like the topic of the presentation gave by Mr. Dave Weidman, Chairman and CEO of Celanese Corp. at the 2nd International Advanced Materials (Tianjin) Summit - "Emerging as a champion in tumultuous times". What are the needed characteristics that will allow the chemicals industry to emerge as winners in such tumultuous economic times? Possible solutions maybe contained in the Advocacy formed at the end of the summit, although it merely got agreed by the 300 attendees in the chemical advanced materials industry.  
   Sustainability is of more importance in the advocacy. Seeking for zero emissions will be the active target for chemical makers to strive in a long term. Many global chemical giants have introduced their experiences and progress in sustainable development to China, such as The Dow Chemical, BASF, AkzoNobel, Evonik, Ciba and Dupont.
   When the local governments and majority shareholder are jointly saving Zhejiang Hualian Sunshine Petrochemical Company - China's largest PTA producers located in Shaoxing of Zhejiang province (CCR 2008 No.30 page 7), Shaoxing's another large chemical firm - Jianglong Group announced to stop operation in October due to collapsed fund chain. The president and general manager disappointed and left a debt of RMB2 billion.

Zhong Weike
November 20th, 2008