Dear President Juncker,
“Are you quite mad?” was the reaction of one well known CEO of a European chemicals company when INEOS publicly announced recently its huge €3 billion petrochemicals expansion in Antwerp in January of this year. The first of its kind for a generation.
Nobody but nobody in my business seriously invests in Europe. They haven’t for a generation. Everyone in my business does however invest in the USA, Middle East or China, or indeed, all three. The USA is in the middle of a $200 billion spending spree on 333 new chemical plants. China has spent that sum annually for many years, constructing its own chemical building blocks.
Europe, not so long ago the world leader in chemicals, has seen its market share in the last decade alone collapse from 30% world market share to 15%. This is an industry that employs over 1 million people in high quality jobs in Europe and five times that in indirect jobs. Worldwide, chemicals is an immense industry, considerably bigger than the automotive sector with revenues approaching $4 trillion. --
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