The impact of the global financial crisis is still in its “first half,” but there is only a brief opportunity to bring tough reforms, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said on Friday.
“It is still too early for people to pat themselves on the back and say that we’ve managed to get through the crisis,” WEF managing director Richard Samans said.
“I think we’re still in the first half of the aftermath of this crisis,” Samans said on the sidelines of the forum’s second summit on the global agenda in Dubai.
Other forum participants agreed, saying the recovery was threatened by a wide range of problems thrown up by the US-rooted global financial crisis.
“The truth is that we did our best, but [the world is] still going through the storm,” Mohammed Alabbar, head of a committee tasked with helping Dubai counter the impact of the crisis, told the conference.
“The world ... is in trouble, because government debts are out of control, banking is at risk, consumer debt is very high and unemployment of course is high,” he said.
“Deficits [around] the world are staggering,” Alabbar said. “And what’s the consequence of that? Most probably education might suffer as a result of that. Health care will be at risk as a result of that.”
Mark Malloch-Brown, senior adviser for the WEF’s Global Redesign Initiative, told conference participants: “What spurred us all to come here is this sense the crisis isn’t behind us.”
However, “the crisis created malleability, a moment of opportunity to introduce new ideas, to bring changes [to] the global system which in normal times would either not even be contemplated or would take years to get done,” he added.
John Gieve, a senior fellow at Harvard University, warned of the risk posed by complacency now that the most dire moments of the economic crisis have passed.
“There is some risk that with less acute worries about the short-term, the momentum for reform may be ebbing,” Gieve said.
Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation, agreed.
“We’ve got a window of opportunity. The crisis has focused the minds of the governments,” Burrow said.
INFRINGEMENT: The investigation comes after a complaint from Vicor Corp, with the company seeking a limited exclusion order as well as cease-and-desist orders, the ITA said The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched a Section 337 investigation naming Taiwanese technology companies, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), as respondents. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) pledged assistance if needed. The USITC said on Friday in a statement that it had voted to institute an investigation under Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 into certain vertical power delivery systems, related components and computing devices incorporating such systems. The investigation covers 20 companies from Taiwan, China, Germany and the US, the commission said, adding that it
PACKAGING PUSH: The chipmaker said that it would begin ramping up silicon interposer production in New York in the first half of 2028 to support AI systems GlobalFoundries Inc shares gained as much as 7 percent after the chip manufacturer announced a five-year, US$2 billion deal to provide US production capacity to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). Under the agreement, announced on Thursday, GlobalFoundries is to help supply components known as silicon interposers. The US company is to rely on manufacturing at its facility in Malta, New York, and said it has the option to expand capacity “as customer demand grows.” An interposer is a small layer of silicon that sits between a chip and its packaging. It is home to the wires that carry electronic signals and
A man charged along with Super Micro Computer Inc co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw (廖益賢) of conspiring to send cutting-edge chips to China in violation of US export controls pleaded guilty, court documents said. Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun (孫廷瑋), a former outside contractor described by US authorities as a “fixer” who allegedly aided in the sales, pleaded guilty on Thursday at a hearing in federal court in New York as part of an agreement with prosecutors, court filings showed. Prosecutors claimed the men were part of a scheme to send Nvidia Corp-powered servers to an unnamed Southeast Asian company and then divert them to
SECOND-TOP MONTH: September revenue was 0.6 percent lower month-on-month, but despite the drop, it was the firm’s highest-ever sales report for the month Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported record quarterly revenue for last quarter, after sales last month hit the second-highest monthly level in the company’s history. Revenue in the quarter ended last month was NT$1.49 trillion (US$46.75 billion), up 17 percent from NT$1.27 trillion in the second quarter and exceeding the combined prediction of 19 LSEG SmartEstimate analysts of NT$1.46 trillion. Last quarter’s figure — which was up 12 percent from the midpoint of last year — also surpassed the company’s July estimates of US$44.6 billion to US$45.8 billion amid surging demand for the ramp-up of its advanced 2-nanometer technology, artificial
RSS