A key indicator of eurozone manufacturing health yesterday posted a record rise in raw materials costs, with goods prices also rising at the fastest pace since the economic crisis began.
The final eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, produced by London-based researchers Markit, hit a nine-month high of 57.3 last month, up from 57.1 in December and above the earlier flash estimate of 56.9.
It has now remained above the flat 50, which indicates growth, for 16 months, but 24 hours after data showed eurozone annual inflation shooting up to 2.4 percent, cost inflation hit record highs in major markets Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria.
“This will be noted by the European Central Bank and is likely to reinforce their anti-inflation rhetoric at Thursday’s policy meeting,” London-based IHS Global Insight analyst Howard Archer said.
“Input prices rose at the steepest pace in the survey’s history,” Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said, inflation accelerating in all 17 countries covered.
These increases were largely attributed to higher prices for fuel, food and metals, notably steel and copper, and were passed on to customers with “prices charged for goods rising at the fastest rate since the crisis” began, he said.
While employment picked up, particularly in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, further job losses were seen in Spain and Greece, and the index sank to a six-month low in France.
However, Williamson also noted a “reassuring improvement” in the currency area’s under-pressure periphery, in Ireland and Italy in particular.
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