South American nations fretting over potential fallout from a financial crisis in the US have called an emergency meeting to assess how to fend off spillover economic woes.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said on Saturday that an emergency Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) meeting would be held at Colombia’s request, without indicating the date and venue.
Correa, who studied economics in Belgium and the US, said there was a serious risk that the US would default on government obligations, though he expressed confidence the US economy was not headed for collapse.
“I do not think that is going to happen. The world, the ruling class in the United States, is not going to let it happen,” he added.
Correa, whose country uses the greenback as its currency, said South American nations should move to a new financial structure that depends less on the US dollar.
“Not that we can become independent from the dollar economy, but in fact we can minimize its influence very significantly,” he said.
“Why should we depend on the IMF or the World Bank if we have enough savings to create a Bank of the South and fund our own development?” Correa asked. “That can go a long way toward reducing our societies’ vulnerability to the dollar.”
US President Barack Obama held an urgent White House summit with key Democratic allies on Saturday as his Republican foes said fever-pitch efforts to avert a disastrous debt default would soon pay off.
With three days to go before tomorrow’s midnight deadline, Obama warned in his weekly address that “very little time” remains to reach a deal to raise the US$14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
The US economy hit that limit on May 16 and has used spending and accounting adjustments, as well as higher-than-expected tax receipts, to continue operating normally.
Business and finance leaders have warned that default would send crippling aftershocks through the fragile US economy, still wrestling with stubbornly high unemployment of 9.2 percent.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”