Edmund Phelps, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics, yesterday said the Chinese economy will grow more independent from the West over the next 10 years, driven by enterprise innovations and domestic consumption.
“China is surely moving toward less export-dependent and [is becoming] more dependent on domestic investment activities,” he told a Taipei forum titled “A vision of possible developments in the global economy.”
By then, its economic prowess — in terms of unemployment rate and workers’ productivity — will mirror the US in its best days, he said.
The Columbia University academic also pointed out that China will not fail in efforts to step up domestic innovations — a pivotal element he said US enterprises have been lacking, and that this will propel its investment activities to a greater height.
One of the reasons was rising Asian currencies against the greenback because of the sluggish US economy, which has seen enterprises investing less in commercial activities and productivity slumping in the past decade, Phelps said.
In Phelps’ view, the US is far from seeing a full recovery to pre-financial crisis levels, with unemployment hovering between 7 percent and 8 percent as the best case scenario.
This compares with a 4.6 percent US jobless rate during former US president George H.W. Bush’s administration and 5.6 percent in the mid-1990s, he said.
In contrast, Asia, especially China, and other emerging markets like Brazil will catch up with the US in economic growth.
This is because the US is in “the midst of a long structural slump,” obvious from the fact that more investors are shortsighted instead of looking far ahead with their investment portfolios, he added.
The Nobel laureate said US stocks are now closely linked to company quarterly -earnings, which strays from the fact that share prices should reflect investors’ anticipation of a company’s worth over the next five years.
“CEOs are now more concerned with hiding their quarterly earnings targets, rather than thinking about the company’s innovations for the next five years,” the 78-year-old Phelps said.
Phelps last year took up the position of president-dean of the New Huadu Business School at Minjiang University in Fuzhou, China.
He said this position offers him the proximity to study the impact of the Chinese economy.
Phelps yesterday also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between New Huadu and Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, which co-launched a program to develop entrepreneurship among their students.
A total of 60 students will be selected from both schools and sent for courses in Singapore.
They will be offered employment at New Huadu Industrial Group Co (新華都集團), a conglomerate based in Fujian Province that is engaged in the property, retail, tourism, mining and machinery sectors.
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
RSS