Japan’s factories cut production for the fifth straight month in October, the government said yesterday, but the decrease wasn’t as bad as expected and a turnaround may be on the horizon.
Meanwhile, unemployment in Japan worsened slightly and consumer spending fell in October, showing improvements for average households may still take time.
The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said yesterday that industrial production fell 1.8 percent, pulled down as makers of cars and electronic goods scaled back output.
PHOTO: REUTERS
That marked the fifth straight month of drops, but was much better than the 3.4 percent fall predicted in a market survey by the Kyodo News agency.
In another positive sign, manufacturers surveyed by the ministry said they expected to crank up their factories in the next two months, forecasting increases of 1.4 percent last month and 1.5 percent this month.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government said that the national unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent in October, up from 5 percent a month earlier. The figure is low by international standards, but -historically high for Japan.
Compared with a year earlier, the total number of jobless in the country decreased 0.3 percent to 3.34 million in October, the government said. Those with jobs nudged up by 150,000 to 62.86 million.
The unemployment rate counts only those who are looking for work, not individuals who have dropped out of the job market.
Tokyo also said yesterday that household spending fell a real 0.4 percent in October from a month earlier. Government subsidies for electronic goods and cars, put in place to prod consumer spending during the downturn, have expired in recent months.
Deflation is also weighing down the economy. Last week the government said consumer prices fell for the 20th straight month.
Separately, South Korea’s industrial output fell sharply in October from the preceding month, official figures showed yesterday, in an apparent sign the economy is slowing down after a fast post-crisis recovery.
Statistics Korea said production in mining and manufacturing declined a preliminary 4.2 percent from September, the third straight month-on-month fall.
Output had fallen 0.4 percent in September compared to August.
Year-on-year output rose 13.5 percent compared with a 3.9 percent gain in September.
The 12-month average leading index — a key indicator forecasting economic performance — rose 3.4 percent from a year earlier in October, against a 4.9 percent rise the preceding month.
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