Nearly 40 percent of US firms in China have delayed or canceled plans to invest there as the global downturn triggers concerns over future revenues, a survey showed yesterday.
The survey from the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed 37 percent of its member firms said they were postponing investment in the country, while 2 percent had canceled such plans altogether.
The survey, which was carried out among more than 200 companies in November and December and updated in the middle of last month, did not give a comparable figure on investment plans last year.
It showed 35 percent of the respondents projected a fall in revenues this year, compared with just 13 percent expecting declines a year ago.
The Chinese economy, which is heavily dependent on exports, is increasingly feeling the impact of the global financial crisis as foreign markets contract.
It expanded by 9 percent last year, dipping into single-digit growth for the first time in six years.
This year could be even worse, with the World Bank predicting China’s economic growth would be 7.5 percent, which would be the lowest level in 19 years.
A quarter of the firms polled in the AmCham China survey said they had downsized their work forces in China since November, while 21 percent said they planned to cut jobs this year.
The survey also showed that 84 percent of respondents felt China was losing competitive advantages because of rising labor and regulatory costs, up from 71 percent last year.
Foreign direct investment in China fell 32.6 percent in January from a year earlier, official data showed.
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