Asian nations must brace for possible threats to the world’s economic recovery, but a global double-dip recession is unlikely, the IMF chief said yesterday. \n“Policymakers need to remain attuned to negative shocks,” said IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, citing a potential spillover from the eurozone debt crisis, the sharp rise in capital inflows into Asia and the risks of overheating. \nBut Strauss-Kahn said he does not foresee a global double-dip recession and the economic recovery is on track. \n“I don’t believe there will be another dip. Our baseline is that there will be a recovery,” he said in a speech to a conference in the central South Korean city of Daejeon. \nThe IMF last week forecast growth for all Asia in 2010 of 7.5 percent compared with an average 4.6 percent worldwide. \nStrauss-Kahn hailed the continent’s role as “a global economic powerhouse” in the wake of the global slowdown. \n“As Asia’s economic weight in the world continues to rise, its stake in the economic performance of other countries is rising too,” he said, crediting reforms put in place since the 1997-1998 East Asian financial crisis. \n“So, despite being hit hard initially, Asia was able to bounce back quickly from the global financial crisis,” Strauss-Kahn said. \nBut with Europe and the US expected to face a possibly extended period of low growth, the IMF chief urged Asia to increase domestic investment and consumption to counterbalance reliance on exports. \n“It’s encouraging that many of the changes needed to foster and sustain this second engine of growth are already under way across the region,” he said. \nThese include strong social safety nets, which can boost private consumption, better infrastructure to encourage private investment and more flexible exchange rates, he said. \nSouth Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun called for changes to the quota voting system of the Washington-based IMF to reflect Asia’s growing voice. \nHe also urged it to come up with a “detailed and realistic” plan for tackling the volatility that can arise from rapid international capital flows. \n“I believe the IMF has an important contribution to make, by proposing and enacting concrete and realistic measures to strengthen financial safety nets around the globe,” Yoon said. \nSouth Korea, which will host a G20 summit in November, has been pushing the issue of a global financial safety net — partly to discourage the excessive accumulation of unproductive foreign exchange reserves. \nStrauss-Kahn said Asia would get a bigger say in the IMF and this could be completed by the G20 summit. \nThe IMF chief told a press conference it was “time to rebuild relationships with Asian countries” and said their economies should have been rebuilt after 1997-98 in a “less painful” way. \nIn South Korea the crisis is still known as the “IMF crisis” amid lingering resentment at the fund’s tough prescriptions.
MOBILE SMART: The Dimensity 1200 is 22 percent better in terms of performance than its predecessor, and 25 percent more power-efficient, the handset chip designer said MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday unveiled its premium 5G processors — the Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 — as it vies for a larger slice of the world’s rapidly growing 5G smartphone market. Manufactured using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) 6-nanometer process technology, the Dimensity 1200 processor performs 22 percent better than the previous generation Dimensity 1000+ processor, and is 25 percent more power-efficient, MediaTek said. Chinese smartphone brands Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Realme Mobile Telecommunications (Shenzhen) Co (銳爾覓移動通信) are to be the first adopters of the latest Dimensity chips, the companies said during a virtual media briefing. Xiaomi plans to equip its first
From India to China to the US, automakers cannot make vehicles — not that no one wants any, but because a more than US$450 billion industry for semiconductors got blindsided. How did both sides end up here? Over the past two weeks, automakers across the world have bemoaned the shortage of chips. Germany’s Audi, owned by Volkswagen AG, would delay making some of its high-end vehicles because of what chief executive officer Markus Duesmann called a “massive” shortfall in an interview with the Financial Times. The firm has furloughed more than 10,000 workers and reined in production. That is a further blow
‘BROAD RANGE’: The US Department of Commerce intends to deny a significant number of license requests for exports to Huawei, an industry association said US President Donald Trump’s administration notified Huawei Technologies Co (華為) suppliers, including chipmaker Intel Corp, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications to supply the telecommunications firm, people familiar with the matter told reporters. The action — likely the last against Huawei under Trump — is the latest in a long-running effort to weaken the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, which Washington sees as a national security threat. The notices came amid a flurry of US efforts against China in the final days of Trump’s administration. US president-elect Joe
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