A multilateral trading system is the best option for Asia's export-driven economies and a successful WTO meeting in Mexico will be crucial, a Singapore minister said yesterday.
"We need to ensure that global trade is based on a rule-based multilateral trading system where goods and services can flow freely with minimum impediment," said Minister of State for Trade and Industry Raymond Lim.
"To sum up, the WTO and the multilateral trading system is the best way forward for Singapore and for East Asia," Lim said in a keynote address on trade policy challenges facing the region.
With the global economy slowing and plagued by worries of a possible Middle East war, Lim said it was more important than ever that members of the international community work together to ensure success at the WTO ministerial meeting in the Mexican town of Cancun in September.
"After an initial recovery, the global economy appeared to have lost steam. Our economies need a collective boost to investment and consumption," Lim said.
"We have to galvanize one another to continue moving forward, and send a strong and positive message to the business community and the world at large," he said.
"It is imperative that Cancun succeeds, otherwise it will be a major setback for the whole Doha Development Agenda, and adds further gloom to global economic prospects, particularly for developing and least developed countries," Lim said.
The full ministerial meeting in Cancun is to serve as a review of the progress on the Doha round of trade negotiations started in the Qatari capital in November 2001.
"It is a comprehensive and balanced agenda that seeks to increase market access for agricultural goods, industrial goods and services," Lim said. "More importantly, for developing countries, the Doha round offers a unique opportunity to advance development in concrete terms," he said.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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