The worst of the financial sector crisis is over although the impact on the broader economy will likely drag on in coming months, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said yesterday.
“There are good reasons to believe that the largest part of disclosure in financial institutions has been done, especially in the United States ... so that the worst news is behind us,” he told a panel at the European Parliament.
“The main problem is the linkages between the financial crisis and the real economy and this is not behind us,” he added, estimating the impact of the financial turmoil to weigh on economic activity for another “several quarters.”
Economic growth has lost pace in most major economies recently in the wake of a slump in the US housing market, which has triggered extreme financial market volatility and reluctance among banks to make all but the safest loans.
After months of nerve-wracking swings in financial markets, optimism has begun to emerge among market participants that the worst of the storm has blown over since the collapse of the US investment bank Bear Stearns in the middle of March.
While past financial crises tended to be triggered by problems in developing countries, often with current account problems, Strauss-Kahn warned that in the long term the recent turmoil would likely be “a taste of the new kind of crisis that we are going to face.”
With big developed economies such as the US and Europe slowing following the turmoil, Strauss-Kahn said that emerging countries would be the biggest motors behind world economic growth this year.
Nevertheless, he insisted that such fast-growing economies would also eventually feel the impact of the slowdown in rich countries, although perhaps with “some delay.”
“In no way is there some sort decoupling” between economic growth trends in developed countries and emerging economies, he said, weighing into one of the hottest debates currently in economics.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six