China's premier has called for urgent steps to prevent economic overheating, state media reported yesterday, highlighting increasing concern about keeping the nation's soaring growth from igniting a financial crisis.
"We must take forceful measures to resolve prominent problems to prevent the economy's rapid growth from turning into overheating," Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said on Wednesday in a teleconference with officials nationwide, according to news reports.
Wen, China's top economic official, told officials to "resolutely control" an investment boom that drove economic growth in the second quarter to 11.3 percent, its highest rate in a decade, the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily and the official Xinhua news agency, among others, reported.
Wen didn't announce any new initiatives, but called for more vigorous enforcement of restrictions on construction and bank credit -- the two factors fueling the current boom.
NEW MEASURE
In a new measure to rein in real estate speculation, the government said it would impose a capital gains tax of 1 percent to 3 percent from next Tuesday on resales of residential property.
The announcement on the Web site of the government tax agency didn't give details of how the tax would be applied. China already charges a 5 percent tax on property sold after less than five years of ownership.
Separately, Standard and Poor's said yesterday that it had raised its long-term sovereign credit ratings for China to "A" from "A-" based on a strengthening banking sector and continuing economic liberalization.
The international ratings agency said the outlook was stable amid expectations that China would maintain macroeconomic stability while it continued with its economic restructuring.
"The upgrade on the ratings on China reflects its persistent efforts to strengthen the banking sector that will reduce the future fiscal burden, as well as China's continuing economic liberalization and reform that will further entrench excellent growth prospects," said Ping Chew (周彬), a credit analyst with Standard and Poor's sovereign ratings group.
The ratings service said that it had lowered its estimate of non-performing assets in China's financial system to 21-25 percent of total loans by the end of last year, with the ratio expected to decline further.
It did not give its original estimate for non-performing assets.
RISING REVENUE
China's rising budgetary revenue should reach more than 20 percent of GDP this year, while its deficit should fall to less than 1 percent of GDP, it projected.
Standard and Poor's said it expected to see "ongoing efforts" to moderate growth in the economy, which expanded 10.9 percent in the first half of this year.
"More lending rate hikes and monetary tightening, including gradual appreciation of the renminbi [yuan], are expected," it 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],”
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