IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a newspaper interview yesterday that he did not expect Ireland to call on a European rescue fund to help the country cope with its financial crisis.
Asked by German business daily Handelsblatt whether Dublin needed to tap the fund, the head of the International Monetary Fund said “we are not expecting it.”
“We are ready in case we need to contribute,” he added nonetheless.
PHOTO: AFP
“The situation in Ireland is very different from that in Greece ... The Irish government has already put in place a series of solid fiscal and banking sector measures,” he said.
Ireland revealed on Thursday that bailing out Anglo Irish Bank could cost nearly 35 billion euros (US$44 billion), which could drive the public deficit to a record 32 percent of GDP.
Eurozone countries created the European Financial Stability Facility in May at the height of the Greek debt crisis to help out members that get into fiscal trouble and cannot finance their budget shortfalls through the bond market.
It was granted authority to raise up to 440 billion euros by issuing bonds guaranteed by eurozone member countries with solid credit ratings, which would be used to help countries in need.
The rescue fund’s head, Klaus Regling, ruled out a bailout on Thursday.
However, voters have lost faith in Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen. An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll showed yesterday that 61 percent of the electorate think he should stand down before the next general election, which has to be held no later than 2012, but is likely to be held before then.
The poll — coming after Cowen and Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan disclosed on Thursday that Ireland faces a bill of up to 50 billion euros to clean up its banks — showed 29 percent thought he should remain in place and 10 percent had no opinion.
Meanwhile, new data showed the country’s brief economic upturn weakening further.
Ireland officially exited two years of recession in the first quarter before shrinking again over the following three months. The third quarter did not look much better after manufacturing activity shrank for the first time in seven months last month.
The NCB Purchasing Managers’ Index, which measures the Irish manufacturing sector, fell sharply to 48.4 from 51.1 in August, dipping below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction for the first time since February.
The government has insisted the overall trend was still pointing to economic stabilization after an unprecedented plunge last year but investors worry that slower-than-expected recovery will threaten plans to cut Europe’s biggest budget deficit.
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],”
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
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