The nation's top economic plan-ners said yesterday they are working on a plan to minimize the economic fallout from the terrorist attack in the US.
"If the US economy is hurt severely by the recent terrorist assault on the US, it could also seriously undercut Taiwan's economic recovery," Chen Po-chih (
Economists from the agency are working on a contingency plan to eliminate possible "insufficiencies resulting in a further slump in external demand" for Taiwan products, Chen said.
The news follows a terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and partially damaged the Pentagon in Washington.
The economic planning body's No. 3 man said that a strike on the financial heart of the US will have an impact on that country's economic growth.
"The US may now report negative GDP growth this year, which in turn would continue to exacerbate the current global slowdown for another three months or more," said Thomas Yeh (
The financial impact of the blow to US confidence may trigger a drop off in consumer spending, which would further hamper Taiwan's economic growth as the nation's economy is dependent on exports, mostly to the US.
"Since 24 percent of Taiwan's exports are to the US, the demand in the US market is very important to Taiwan's economy," said Neal Stovicek, an analyst at National Securities (
Yeh said he believes the recovery in Taiwan may not happen soon, as the "general expectation that the US economy will bottom out during the Christmas shopping season is quickly vanishing."
In line with that scenario, Taiwan's economy could contract more than 1 percent this year, a Chinese language newspaper reported yesterday, citing unidentified sources at the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
In July, the Directorate General predicted third quarter economic growth would contract 2.45 percent and 0.37 percent for the year.
But with the US tragedy factored in, the Directorate General official said it would be hard to maintain a positive growth rate in the fourth quarter.
According to Chen Po-chih, his agency's economists are mapping out strategies to increase domestic demand in the hope that a boost in consumption will help fill in expected insufficiencies caused by possible decreases in trade with the US. While pundits sought to assess the economic damage from the attack, the most common theme was that a great deal of uncertainty still remains.
"We have never seen people rattled like this before. Whether the financial shock will have a long-term effect, nobody knows for sure," said Chris Irwin, vice president of Taiwan Ratings Corp (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained