On Friday, I told The New York Times: “The free fall in global trade seems to have halted.” The graph below summarizes the data behind the quote. As you can see, after four months of free fall in the number of manufacturers shipping to American customers, there were increases from February to March (~2%), and […]
The data behind the quote is coming Monday… “The free fall in global trade seems to have halted,” said Josh Green, the chief executive of Panjiva… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/economy/29norris.html?_r=1&ref=business
Earlier today, Panjiva announced an exclusive relationship with Sinosure, the leading provider of information on the financial health of Chinese companies. Now we’re moving quickly to provide you with the tools necessary to assess the health of your Chinese supply chain. Specifically, I’m excited to tell you about Panjiva SinoScreen — a diagnostic tool that […]
Remember when American officials were worried about the safety of Chinese exports? How quickly the tables have turned. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is “worried” about the “safety” of America’s most dangerous export: U.S. Treasury bonds. Five months ago, I wrote about the parallels between China’s product safety crisis and America’s financial crisis. Today, there’s not […]
Pessimistic, if not terribly surprising, 2009 predictions from the World Bank: Global economy will shrink for first time since World War II Global trade will shrink for the first time since 1982 If 2009 turns out the way that the World Bank predicts, it will be the year which illustrates both the success and failure […]
Over at IndustryWeek, you’ll find Panjiva’s thoughts about how to respond to price increases in China. Given all the trouble that Chinese factories are having, are price increases really still a problem? So far, yes. Declining demand is leading to factory closures (see previous post), NOT downward pressure on wages. Our IndustryWeek piece evaluates three […]
Another article in the New York Times about factory closures in China. According to government statistics, 67,000 Chinese factories closed in the first half of the year. 11,000 per month. And that was BEFORE the global economic meltdown. It’s scary enough that all of these factories are closing. It’s even scarier that these closures are […]
Two interesting posts over at SpendMatters: * One notes that Indian suppliers are refusing to take orders from American companies because they’re worried the American companies won’t be able to pay. (This, by the way, is consistent with what we’ve been hearing from suppliers.) * The second highlights concerns that buyers have (or should have) […]
The past week has been an historic one in the financial markets, and this morning’s retail sales results are just a reminder that we’re not out of the woods yet – and probably won’t be any time soon. The Federal Reserve warns that we face “one of the most challenging economic and policy environments in […]
More bad news for those who are in the business of selling to consumers: September Retail Sales Reflect the Slowdown. Unfortunately, declining consumer spending is just one of the three alarming trends that, together, constitute “The Great Squeeze.” What’s The Great Squeeze, and how can you survive it? Here are our thoughts… One of our […]
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