The US still has the world’s most competitive economy, despite the turmoil that has seen some Wall Street giants tumble and others turn to the Federal Reserve for financial bailouts, a survey released yesterday found.
In a poll of more than 12,000 business figures conducted by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum, the US ranked first, ahead of Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore.
Finland came in sixth in the poll, while Germany slipped two places to seventh because of worsening business confidence in Europe’s biggest economy.
The Netherlands, Japan and Canada rounded off the top 10.
Britain, which came ninth last year, slipped down three spaces because of growing public debt and low national savings compared with other major economies.
Researchers defended the survey’s accuracy despite the fact that it was conducted before the US government announced a US$700 billion rescue package to save ailing financial companies from collapse.
“In the context of the current crisis the index rather measures the ability of economies to limit the impact of the shock waves on the real economy and to bounce back quickly based on sound economic fundamentals,” said Margareta Drzeniek Hanouz, one of the authors of the report.
“As the crisis spills over into the real economy, we may see a weakening of the assessment in some categories over the next year or two, in particular with respect to macroeconomic stability or public institutions, but this remains to be seen,” she said.
The World Economic Forum, which hosts the annual Davos pow-wow of business and political leaders, said in the report that US is well placed to rebound from the financial crisis because of its inherent competitive advantages.
Pollsters asked business figures to rate 134 countries according to factors that promote economic growth. These included government transparency and fiscal responsibility; transport and telecommunications infrastructure; openness to innovation; intellectual property protection; and the ready availability of talent.
China continued to climb this year, up four places to 30, helped by its large market and strong economic performance, but held back by underdeveloped financial markets, the report said.
Russia also rose sharply, climbing seven places to 51, its big market and oil-fueled economic performance outweighing institutional weaknesses.
Brazil also rose sharply. But among other big emerging economies, India slipped two places to rank 50 with economic problems and unequal access to health and education outweighing the size of its markets and its business sophistication.
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