Japan's top economic policymakers vowed yesterday to support economic recovery by extending tax cuts and benefits, implementing reforms and restoring public and private finances to sound health.
Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told parliament the government will extend income tax cuts and tax benefits to help home buyers, while providing other incentives to help stimulate the real-estate and stock markets.
"In order to build the bridge from economic recovery to sustained growth, it is important to push for a comprehensive policy of revitalizing the economy and building a sustainable fiscal base," Tanigaki said in a prepared speech.
Members of parliament yesterday returned from a winter break for a 150-day session, during which they will debate and approve the national budget and tax policy for the next fiscal year starting April 1, as well as other key issues.
Tanigaki stressed that Japan will take a firm step in the new fiscal year toward its ultimate goal of turning the national and regional budget deficits, the highest among the major economies, into surpluses within 10 years.
Tanigaki repeated that Tokyo will "take appropriate action" in the currency market when it moves out of line with economic fundamentals, meaning it will continue intervention to prevent a rising yen from hurting Japanese exports.
Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Heizo Takenaka called for "structural reforms" as the most effective way of improving the world's second-largest economy.
Takenaka told parliament that banks are making progress in reducing non-performing loans.
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