Word: aluminum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...might seem like a killjoy. After all, China at the moment is the star on the world economic stage. The country's soaring need for a host of goods, especially commodities such as oil, iron ore and aluminum, is a major contributor to global economic recovery. China is poised this year to pass Japan as the world's third largest importer. But the government needs to keep the economy superheated just to provide jobs for the 12 million to 15 million people coming into its labor market every year. That means finding ever larger markets--both internal and overseas...
...country's soaring demand for metals has caused a sharp increase in raw-materials prices this year, overinvestment could eventually cause prices to collapse there too. A metals trader in the U.S., for example, hangs on his wall a world map with black dots indicating the location of aluminum plants. Most producing countries have five or six dots; China has 130. "China is building smelters like McDonald's opens restaurants," says the trader, who asked not to be identified. He's worried, because China used to be a net importer of aluminum before starting to export and driving down world...
...central government has pondered ways to rein in expansion of what it calls "overheated industrial sectors," including autos, aluminum and construction. But it seems unable to decide how fast the economy should expand and so far hasn't announced any significant changes to dampen growth. In June, for example, the central bank tried to end overbuilding by curtailing mortgages for homes not yet constructed. Two months later, the Prime Minister's office issued a contradictory statement that not only encouraged mortgage lending but also "enhanced loan support" for developers...
...enjoyed. True to the old man's wishes, his five offspring have been selling off chunks of the Forbes art collection that took a lifetime to gather. The crown jewels went last week: nine rare Faberge eggs and sundry other works in a private sale to Russian oil and aluminum tycoon Viktor Vekselberg for more than $100 million...
What CIA analysts imagined to be dispositive evidence of Saddam's nuclear ambitions turned out, in Kay's judgment, to be proof of plain, old-fashioned greed. For months the Administration claimed that finely machined aluminum tubes, imported with ever higher tolerances--that is, precision in their specifications--were part of a campaign to produce gas centrifuges for the production of weapons-grade nuclear fuel. But after examining the tubes and talking to the scientists who procured and used them, Kay became convinced that the increasing tolerances were to meet not technical requirements but financial ones. The ever changing tolerances...