Coal suddenly a commodity in extreme demand

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Monday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>Today we lead with news the price of coal is racing higher, making Australian and American miners rich, all based on extreme stress in both the Chinese and Indian electricity generation sectors.</p><p>But first up today, the ICIJ has <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-investigation/" target="_blank"><strong>released</strong></a> a new huge trove of documents that reveal "the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else." A small but crucial role in all this is played by New Zealand's "best place to do business" arrangements, allowing our reputation to shield dodgy dealings by some very wealthy individuals from Russia, China, and Brazil, among others. In Australia, more than 400 people have been identified as involved. The Pacific islands are involved too. This data dump is called the Pandora Papers, a similar expose as the Panama Papers which were released in 2016.</p><p>Separately, there are signs the extreme cost of shipping containers is easing, and fast. An executive with a Shanghai freight company <a href="https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-10-01/cost-of-shipping-between-china-and-us-plunges-101782973.html" target="_blank"><strong>said overnight</strong></a> that the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from China to the US West Coast dropped by nearly half in the previous four days, going from about US$15,000 to just over US$8,000. The spot rate for shipping to the US East Coast had fallen by more than one-quarter from over US$20,000 to less than US$15,000. The shipping off-season is almost here, the Chinese power crunch has slowed Chinese factory output, and seeing this, speculators are rushing to sell-off their hoarded shipping spots.</p><p>In the more broad east Asian region, the World