The Chinese yuan climbed yesterday, reversing earlier losses, on speculation Ireland’s 85 billion euro (US$112.5 billion) aid package would boost the outlook for global economic growth.
The US Dollar Index traded on ICE futures in New York, which tracks the currency against those of six trading partners, declined as much as 0.4 percent.
The People’s Bank of China set the reference rate for yuan trading at 6.67 per US dollar yesterday, 0.22 percent lower than Friday’s and the biggest daily fall since Oct. 27.
“The yuan’s rebound is due to the dollar’s weakness,” said Zhao Qingming (趙慶明), a senior analyst in Beijing at China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行), the country’s second-largest lender.
“It shows the central bank is managing the yuan against a basket of currencies,” Zhao said.
The Chinese currency fell 0.1 percent to 6.6606 per US dollar as of 5:30pm in Shanghai, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. It earlier declined to 6.6770 yuan, the weakest level since Nov. 9.
Twelve-month non-deliverable forwards gained 0.34 percent to 6.5441 yuan per dollar, reflecting bets the yuan will gain 1.8 percent in a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a speech on Friday that China should continue allowing its currency to strengthen.
“It is in the interest of both the country itself and its partners in trade that the exchange rate properly reflects the strength of a country’s economy,” he said in Hamburg, Germany.
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