Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Chairman Chen Tian-jy (陳添枝) said yesterday it would be difficult for the nation to achieve an economic growth rate of 5.08 percent next year and the statistics agency would revise its forecast next month.
Chen made the comment at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, which is reviewing the central government’s fiscal plan for next year.
“I’m afraid the government cannot accomplish the goal of raising GDP growth [to 5.08 percent] next year,” Chen said when asked by opposition lawmakers to comment on the economy.
Chen said the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, due to update its economic forecasts next month, would make the necessary adjustments caused by the ongoing financial credit crisis battering world markets.
Chen compared the credit crunch to a strong typhoon whose eye is sweeping across the globe and Taiwan will not be spared from its impact.
The top economic adviser predicted the storm would be over by the end of the year, but shied away from speculating on its aftermath.
“It’s hard to estimate the damage of the credit crisis,” Chen said, adding that stabilizing domestic financial markets now took precedence over the pursuit of economic growth.
To that end, Chen said, the government decided on Sunday to halve the daily limit of decline allowed on the local bourse for a week.
Chen said the measure may be extended, if necessary, but he voiced reservations on the idea of turning it into a long-term policy on the grounds that the practice would increase liquidity pressures.
He dismissed media reports that the government mulled using national development funds to bail out private lenders, saying the practice is needless in light of the state of the local banking system.
Chen said he had yet to reach a conclusion on the proposed establishment of a sovereignty wealth fund, but added that such a fund should not draw its funding from the nation’s foreign exchange reserves.
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