European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet rose to the defense of the euro yesterday, describing it as a “credible” currency that was not in crisis.
“I think that we have to see that we have a currency that is credible,” Trichet told RTL radio a day after the ECB backed an extension in special measures to tackle eurozone debt pressures. “There is no crisis for the euro as a currency. We have problems of financial instability that are the result of budget crises in certain European countries.”
The bank on Thursday left its key interest rate at a record low of 1 percent, but said it would extend cheap emergency funding for the commercial banks through the first quarter of next year.
Crucially, the ECB also said it would continue to buy government bonds to help ease pressure on a growing list of financially vulnerable eurozone countries — Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain — but gave no indication it would increase its purchases.
Trichet said yesterday the decision to leave interest rates unchanged at 1 percent “is what we think is necessary to continue to provide our fellow citizens ... price stability, which is our mandate.”
While the ECB announced it would keep buying government bonds, a key part of its stimulus measures to support indebted eurozone nations and fight the debt crisis, the chief of the IMF said on Thursday the debt crisis in Europe remained serious, but he tipped Ireland to recover rapidly after its weekend bailout.
On Sunday, the EU and the IMF announced an 85 billion euro (US$111 billion) rescue package for Ireland to shore up its banking sector and enable the country to meet its debt obligations.
“The crisis in Europe is still strong” with Ireland and Greece “at the edge of a cliff” and some other nations are “not far from the edge of the cliff,” IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told reporters in New Delhi.
However, the Irish rescue “should fix the problems” and the country’s economy “will come back on track rather rapidly,” he said, adding the IMF stood poised to assist other nations if needed.
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],”
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
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