China and India will be the biggest “engines of growth” to help the Asia-Pacific region navigate the global storm next year, Standard & Poor’s said yesterday.
In its Asia-Pacific Markets Outlook 2009 report, the international credit rating agency said that China and India would enjoy growth of 8 percent and 7 percent respectively next year, compared with a contraction of 0.9 percent in the US economy and a sluggish growth of 0.5 percent in the eurozone.
“[The] Asia-Pacific [region] is expected to be able to roll with the punches — although some economies such as Japan and Singapore are likely to experience quarters of negative GDP growth,” Subir Gokarn, S&P’s Asia-Pacific region chief economist, told a teleconference yesterday.
Aside from strong domestic demand in China and India, the supportive monetary policy stances adopted by regional governments would enable most economies to experience positive, albeit slowing, growth next year, he said.
Taiwan could outperform Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand with a GDP growth of between 1.8 percent and 2.3 percent next year, the report said.
S&P said defaults by rated companies were expected to increase next year.
The number of negatives on S&P’s CreditWatch was about 19 percent, versus 5 percent for positives, regional chief credit officer Ian Thompson said.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
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Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
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