Japan said yesterday that corporate investment had slowed from its recent breakneck pace in the three months to September, raising fears of a downgrade in economic growth for the quarter.
The data contributed to a mixed performance on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and led some analysts to believe that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) would become more hesitant on hiking interest rates in the near future.
The Ministry of Finance said combined corporate capital spending rose 12 percent year-on-year between July and September as big businesses continued to build and upgrade factories.
The index, determined by surveying close to 25,000 big companies, was up for the 14th straight quarter but it was down from a 16.6 percent year-on-year increase in the quarter to June which was the fastest rise on record.
The government uses the quarterly corporate survey to fine-tune its GDP data. Revised GDP figures for the September quarter are due out on Friday.
The preliminary estimate released last month beat expectations, showing the world's second largest economy growing by a resilient 0.5 percent from the previous quarter or an annualized 2 percent.
"The preliminary GDP data showed a surprisingly strong rise in capital investment but [yesterday's] survey implied that the overall capex and GDP readings would come in at levels that most economists had originally thought," said Junichi Makino, senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research.
Analysts had been expecting third quarter growth of 0.3 percent for an annualized 1.2 percent rate.
Economists last week said the figures still showed an underlying expansion.
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],”
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
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