Carmelo Ruiz: Syngenta and the Chinese factor (A most prescient article)

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/28/syngenta-and-the-chinese-factor/

The much-talked about Monsanto-Syngenta merger is likely but not inevitable. Monsanto began 2016 with its third buyout offer to the European corporation in less than a year. Syngenta’s management announced it will not decide on Monsanto’s latest bid right away because it is considering other offers. In a conference in Switzerland in mid-January, company chairman Michael Demare said it is evaluating proposals from German companies BASF and Bayer, which are also world leaders in the agricultural biotech and pesticide sectors, and from ChemChina.

Although not very well known in North America and Europe, the Chinese state-owned ChemChina is one mammoth of a corporation. With $45.6 billion in annual revenues and some 140,000 employees, it ranks 265th in the Fortune 500 index.