Chinese leaders wrapped up an annual strategy meeting yesterday vowing to keep economic stimulus and easy credit policies in place to support a stable recovery, while improving the quality of the country’s often chaotic economic growth.
The meeting in Beijing, presided over by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), ended as expected with calls to ensure the recovery from the global crisis remains stable, Xinhua news agency said in dispatches posted on the government’s main Web site.
Officials attending the three-day Central Economic Work Conference agreed that the global slowdown had added to the urgency for China to adjust its model of economic growth, which many economists say is excessively dominated by state-led industries, rather than more sustainable, consumer-led demand.
China’s economy is forecast to grow 8.3 percent this year, after dipping to a low of 6.1 percent in the first quarter and since recovering to 8.9 percent in July-September.
Like other major economies, China is wary of pulling back from stimulus policies put in place late last year, given the weakness of key export markets in the US and Europe, where unemployment has continued to rise despite signs the worst of the crisis may be past.
To counter the slump in exports, Beijing announced a 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) stimulus package and urged state-controlled banks to lend lavishly to support a slew of public works projects.
Now, the emphasis is shifting to promoting consumer spending and private investment — drivers of domestic demand that are seen as crucial for future growth.
While consumer demand has remained resilient despite the slowdown earlier in the year, it still accounts for less than half of China’s economic activity — well below the levels in many other major economies.
Meanwhile, the government is struggling to control the expansion of industries viewed as already overheated, such as steelmaking and cement.
The rapid credit expansion has added to risks in China’s banking sector, the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements warned in a quarterly report issued Sunday.
Aside from the easing of standards to allow banks to issue some 8.95 trillion yuan in new loans in January-October, up from a total of 4.2 trillion yuan the year before, future tightening of monetary policies might leave some projects short of funds before they are completed, leading to a buildup of bad loans, it said.
Meanwhile, inflows of outside capital into the world’s fastest-growing major economy are adding to inflationary pressures, especially in real estate and stock markets, the BIS report 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
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