Australia’s ability to weather the global downturn has enhanced its bid to become Asia’s financial hub, observers said, after a report ranked its market ahead of those of Singapore and Hong Kong.
The World Economic Forum ranked Australia second in its annual survey of financial systems and capital markets earlier this month, behind Britain but ahead of the US.
The forum found that while major markets had been acutely hit by the global financial crisis, Australia had showed particular strength, even among the better performing Asian economies.
ASIAN HUB
The ranking was welcome news for the center-left Labor government of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd which has been pushing for the country’s financial services sector to become an Asian hub, despite the limitations of distance.
“In terms of making Australia into a financial services hub, we see this financial crisis as an opportunity,” Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen said following the release of the survey.
“For years to come, the world’s investors will be looking to see who got through this crisis the best: which system of prudential regulation worked? Which financial institutions got through this crisis the best? Which nation survived the global financial crisis?” he asked.
SHOCKS
“And, in Australia, we are in a very strong position place to argue that it’s us — that our real economy, our financial sector have withstood the shocks of the last two years better than any other,” he said.
Bowen said Australia’s equity market was the eighth largest in the world while the country had the biggest pool of funds under management in Asia.
Meanwhile Australia is the only major Western nation to have avoided a recession in the worldwide slump, posting growth of 0.6 percent in the three months to June — the best in the developed world.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six