Asia, for the first time in modern history, is expected to outperform the US in terms of consumption power this year, becoming a growth engine for the global economy, Koh Boon-hwee (許文輝), chairman of DBS Group (星展集團), said in Taipei yesterday.
For every US$1 US consumers contribute to the global economy this year, consumers in 10 Asian countries will contribute another US$1.02 at the same time, up from US$0.50 some 20 years ago, he said, citing the bank’s research estimates.
The US will remain the top single country in terms of consumption, however.
The Singapore-based banking group hopes to prosper from growing business opportunities in Asia, which, also for the first time, has bounced back from an economic downturn to a V-shaped recovery this year without the US’ help, the chairman of Singapore’s third-largest financial institution said.
Koh said his group would focus on organic growth this year, although he doesn’t rule out the possibility of expanding through acquisitions.
“If it meets our criteria [to acquire a controlling stake], we are not shy about acquisition,” he said, adding that the group has a team studying potential targets.
Meanwhile, the group’s local subsidiary, DBS Taiwan, will likely report NT$600 million (US$18.87 million) in pre-tax earnings for last year, up from NT$474 million as of November, which was better than the parent group had expected, Taipei-based general manager Jerry Chen (陳亮丞) told yesterday’s media briefing.
“Before our goal was just to turn a profit this year, but we’ve met that goal ahead of schedule,” he said, adding that he aimed to double retail clientele this year.
The size of the local subsidiary’s workforce will also grow to some 1,400 from 1,092, Chen 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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts