O impacte da China nos preços mundiais

Dois artigos super-interessantes e bem reveladores das redes de relações de causa-efeito que não estão à vista de todos mas que afectam a nossa vida a nível global.

• "Glut of Chinese Goods Pinches Global Economy"
• "How China’s Taste for Milk Actually Hurt the Value of New Zealand’s Cows"

Este ritmo de consumo:

Não podia continuar!
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Enquanto durou, foi transmitindo sinais a muitos actores presentes no mercado, que resolveram investir para dar resposta a novos níveis de procura no futuro.
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Só que o futuro só é uma continuação do passado até deixar de ser.

"A dozen years ago, low-cost workers from the countryside poured in to China’s factories, helping bring down the cost of everything from T-shirts to tricycles.
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Then the country’s booming demand for commodities such as oil and cotton helped to reverse that downward inflation trend, as natural-resource prices surged. Now, China’s excess manufacturing capacity and slowing growth rate are changing the equation again, putting renewed downward pressure on prices.
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Milk producers in New Zealand, coal miners in Australia and sugar growers in Brazil have been forced to cut their prices after finding they had overestimated commodity demand from China. At the same time, Chinese manufacturers, stung by their country’s economic slowdown and excess capacity, are flooding export markets with finished goods such as tires, steel and solar panels.
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Global deflationary pressures emanating from China are symptomatic of wider demand issues gripping economies from South America and Europe to much of Asia.
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Last year, China exported 94 million metric tons of steel, more than the total output of the U.S., India and South Korea, the world’s third, fourth and fifth largest producers.
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The price of a common steel product called hot-rolled coil has dropped by 44% since March 2012,
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In 2013, Chinese authorities named 19 sectors plagued by overcapacity in the country, including cement, aluminum, copper, chemical fiber and paper. “This has happened again and again in markets, but this was on a super scale,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of the Colorado market-research firm IHS Inc. “People invest, but they don’t see what everybody else is doing at the same time.”
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Rubber trees take about seven years to mature. Planters had to decide in 2007—when China’s gross domestic product expanded by 14.2%—how many trees to plant to meet demand in 2014. When it was time to harvest, the Chinese economic growth rate had fallen by about half.
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“A tremendous amount of capacity came on line [in China] before people realized it wasn’t sustainable,” Mr. Grant said. “By then, it was too late.”"

Ah, e já agora, antes que comecem a dizer que o preço do leite deriva do fim das quotas leiteiras, convinha ler:

"New Zealand’s milk industry shows how commodity-producing countries across the world are struggling after having overestimated demand from China’s fast-growing economy.
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As with sugar producers in Brazil, rubber farmers in Thailand and iron ore miners in Australia, New Zealand’s milk producers are coming to grips with the reality that Chinese demand didn’t materialize as expected when capacity was put in place many months back.
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“World markets are oversupplied with dairy commodities after farmers globally increased production in response to the very good milk prices paid 12 to 18  months ago,”
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“The value of whole milk powder we sent to China in April 2015 was a fifth of the April 2014 value,” said Statistics New Zealand’s international statistics manager, Jason Attewell. “Volumes were a third of what they were in April 2014, and lower prices made up the rest of the fall in value.” Whole milk powder prices have tumbled to $2,390 per metric ton at the latest auction on GlobalDairyTrade, an internet platform, from $5,000 in early 2014.
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It isn’t just New Zealand feeling a fallout. U.S. consumer milk prices have dropped in six of the past seven months. They are down 7% since September."

Há também aqui qualquer coisa sobre a dimensão das empresas relacionada com a rapidez da circulação da informação e o risco das bolhas.