The devaluation of currencies allows other Asian countries to cut export prices, especially in plastics and synthetic fibres.

ECONOMIST: India

Its chief executive, Manfred Schneider, has sold off peripheral businesses and spun off the loss-making fibres division into a separate subsidiary, requiring workers to take a pay cut.

ECONOMIST: The chemicals business

They have painstakingly cut through a heart, millimetre by millimetre, to measure and model the arrangement of the muscle fibres in each slice.

ECONOMIST: Model behaviour