BluDanuBlog

Quick note: it seems not everyone is abandoning the euro as a sinking ship. French finance minister Christine Lagarde today “welcome[d] Estonia to the euro club with great satisfaction” after the EU finance ministers approved the country’s adoption of the common currency, according to the Wall Street Journal. The euro will replace the Estonia kroon on January 1.

For the German-enabled: Austrian business leaders and economists take a close look at the triumphs and failures of the European economic model

Will Chinese workers soon be complaining that all the good manufacturing jobs are being outsourced to Texas? The state Comptroller’s office is reporting on a $1 billion pipe manufacturing facility to be built by a Chinese company on the Texas coast:

TPCO America Corp. (TPCO), a subsidiary of China-based Tianjin Pipe (Group) Corp., will build the plant near Gregory in San Patricio County. This will be the largest single manufacturing investment made by a Chinese company in the United States. The facility could create as many as 600 jobs and have an estimated $2.7 billion economic impact in 10 years.

The plant will produce pipe for the oil and gas industry and is scheduled to begin producing in two and a half years.

(And a shout-out goes to trade development goddess Jen Martinez for tweeting the story.)

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reports that the World Trade Organization is predicting a decline of at least 9% in world trade for 2009, the most pessimistic forecast in the organization’s history. What happens next depends on political leaders’ ability to resist protectionist temptations.

Edward Hugh at “A Fistful of Euros covers several recent forecasts of German GDP for 2009, predicting a contraction of anywhere from 4.3% to 7%. Ouch. ”It is also rather worrying that, with elections looming, Germany’s leaders seem to be in serious denial on all of this.”

The Washington Post’s Steven Hill demolishes “Five Myths About Sick Old Europe”:

1. The sclerotic European economy is incapable of leading the world.
2. Nobody wants to invest in European companies and economies because lack of competitiveness makes them a poor bet.
3. Europe is the land of double-digit unemployment.
4. The European “welfare state” hamstrings businesses and hurts the economy.
5. Europe is likely to be held hostage to its dependence on Russia and the Middle East for most of its energy needs.

Wrong, not even close, wrong again, bzzz, thanks for trying.

Jérôme at European Tribune notes the correlation between record high oil prices and a record low dollar against the euro and asks, “Should I start a ‘Countdown to the $2 euro’ series…?”

China and India get most of the headlines, but post-communist Europe has some tiger economies of its own.

Bloomberg reports that Slovakia’s GDP grew at an annual 9.4% in the second quarter with a projected 8.8% for the year.

Meanwhile Poland’s economy expanded at 6.7% in the second quarter, according to Dow-Jones Newswires.

Russia, of course, has become something of an oil sheikhdom in recent years, and even dowdy Belarus has benefited from imports of Russian oil and gas at below-market prices.

Hungary was the laggard with only 1.2% annualized growth in the second quarter, according to the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.