Brazil’s central bank said on Friday it aimed to prevent foreign exchange “distortions” but set no target values for its national currency, the real, which is soaring against the US dollar.
“The central bank doesn’t have forex targets ... what we have is a policy of [foreign currency] reserve accumulation to improve the country’s resistance to the crisis,” the head of the institution, Henrique Meirelles, told reporters in Sao Paulo.
The real has gained 26 percent against the dollar so far this year, recovering almost all the ground lost when the global financial crisis hit last September.
Although the dollar initially strengthened during the crisis because of its safe-haven status, it has since weakened considerably as investors looked to higher-risk emerging markets such as Brazil that promise better returns.
On Friday, the real was trading at 1.85 to the dollar.
Brazil’s central bank has been taking advantage of the dollar’s relative weakness over the past three months to bolster its already hefty foreign reserves.
Its purchases of the US unit have seen those reserves swell to a record US$212 billion last month, making Brazil’s exports more expensive in dollar terms.
That has become a point of concern for several exporting companies, which raised that problem in a meeting on Wednesday with Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, the state news agency Agencia Estado reported.
Although many sectors in Brazil are showing renewed growth powering the country out of a short-lived recession, manufacturing companies are continuing to have difficulty, said Armando Monteiro Neto, head of the National Confederation of Industry.
Brazil could lose market share as a result and see its economy — already heavily reliant on exports such as orange juice, soya, iron and coffee — become dependent on commodities, he said.
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
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