India’s economy expanded 7.9 percent last quarter, the fastest pace in one-and-a-half years, giving the central bank room to withdraw more stimulus to check inflation.
GDP expanded 7.9 percent in the three months to Sept. 30 from a year earlier as manufacturing jumped 9.2 percent, the statistics bureau said in New Delhi yesterday. That was more than all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of 22 economists, where the median forecast was 6.3 percent.
“India’s GDP growth is positioning for an upswing,” said Rajeev Malik, a Singapore-based regional economist at Macquarie Group Ltd. “A handle-with-care exit is on the cards.”
To steer India’s US$1.2 trillion economy through the worst global financial crisis since the 1930s, Governor Subbarao has kept the central bank’s key reverse repurchase rate at a record-low 3.25 percent since April. Government spending and tax cuts took the value of stimulus measures to 12 percent of GDP.
Inflation pressures are building as economic growth quickens and after the weakest monsoon rains since 1972 hurt farm output, pushing up food costs. The central bank forecasts inflation of 6.5 percent by March 31 from 1.34 percent in October and 0.5 percent in September. During last year, the rate rose to almost 13 percent.
“Given the magnitude of easing and the speed at which inflation has bounced back, monetary policy will need to be tightened fairly soon,” the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Nov. 19.
Falling bond yields signal that investors don’t expect interest rates to rise this year.
“We see inflation risks emerging and expect interest-rate hikes from January 2010,” said Ramya Suryanarayanan, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd in Singapore.
Food inflation, which has climbed to 15.58 percent, is a politically sensitive issue in a nation where the World Bank estimates that three-quarters of the population live on less than US$2 a day.
With the second-fastest growth of any major economy, trailing only China, India is drawing investment from companies including South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co and French tiremaker Michelin & Cie, which said this month that it will add a factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this month that returning to the 9 percent growth pace that India averaged between 2004 and last year is “eminently feasible” in the medium term because a national high savings rate will aid investment.
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
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
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
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence
RSS