The US Federal Reserve said on Tuesday the US recovery was gaining traction and inflation pressure from soaring energy costs should be short-lived, allowing it to maintain its heavy support for the economy.
The US central bank decided unanimously to forge ahead with its US$600 billion bond-buying plan despite a considerably more upbeat assessment of the economy and the job market
It made no mention of Japan, which is grappling with the aftermath of the country’s worst -earthquake on record — and struggling desperately to avert a nuclear disaster.
“The economic recovery is on a firmer footing, and overall conditions in the labor market appear to be improving gradually,” the Fed said in a post-meeting statement.
It was a much rosier outlook than the Fed had offered after its last meeting in January, when it characterized the recovery as still too weak to significantly bring down unemployment.
The statement also dropped a reference to economic progress being “disappointingly slow” and a list of roadblocks to consumer spending. In addition, it removed a passage stating that employers remained reluctant to hire.
The Fed reiterated a pledge to keep interest rates, currently near zero, at very low levels for an extended period. That puts it at odds with other prominent monetary authorities like the European Central Bank, which has signaled a rate hike could come next month.
The Fed dedicated an unusually large portion of its statement to inflation concerns surrounding a recent spike in energy and food prices. It said it would monitor inflation and expectations for future prices closely, but added that the situation appears to be under control.
“Long-term inflation expectations have remained stable, and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued,” it said.
Higher gasoline costs have created fresh concerns for consumers, with a big hit to confidence this month raising concerns whether a recent spurt in consumer spending can be sustained.
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