There’s been speculation that China has cut its oil imports from Iran during the past month owing to a pricing dispute. This comes on the back of a U.S decision to impose sanction on foreign banks dealing with Iran’s central bank.
With that in mind, I’ve updated China’s oil import data for the past month. The graph shows only a modest change in the composition of China’s oil imports from its Middle East suppliers throughout the Arab spring.
read more
There’s no doubting that China’s exports to the Middle East have rocketed in the past decade, making it the Middle East’s number one supplier.
But in a region that desperately needs jobs, Chinese exporters have left little untouched, as two recent articles underscore.
The first article describes what is apparently the last Keffiyeh factory in Palestine. Hirbawi textiles is a family-run factory set up in the 1960s. It produces the headscarves famously worn by Yassir Arafat.
read more
