Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said Beijing would “fine-tune” its economic policy this year, state media reported, raising hopes of monetary loosening as the world’s second-largest economy slows.
China’s economy expanded by an annual 9.2 percent last year, narrowing from 10.4 percent in 2010, and is widely expected to slow further this year, raising the specter of more social unrest as the contraction takes hold.
“It’s worth paying close attention to the economic situation in January and the first quarter,” Xinhua news agency quoted Wen on late Sunday as telling a government meeting.
ECONOMIC PLANS
He added the government would “pre-emptively adjust and fine-tune starting from the first quarter,” but gave no further details.
Analysts widely expect Beijing to further trim the amount of money that banks must keep in reserve, following a cut in December last year, to counter slower economic growth due to global turmoil.
“The most basic requirement is to maintain the continuity and flexibility of policy,” Wen said.
TRADE DOWN
The country’s trade activity fell last month from a year earlier, as the domestic slowdown and weaker overseas sales hit demand, though factory closures from a long holiday also played a role.
Exports fell 0.5 percent year-on-year last month to US$149.94 billion, while imports plunged 15.3 percent to US$122.66 billion, the government said, marking the worst performance since during the global financial crisis in 2009.
The slowdown has resulted in large-scale strikes in recent months, as workers resentful about low salaries or layoffs face off with employers juggling high costs and exports hit by lower demand from the debt-burdened West.
So far the policy fine-tuning has focused more on cutting taxes and red tape for the small businesses that provide about 75 percent of the jobs in China. Wen ruled out loosening the government’s grip over the property sector, citing the need for “reasonable” housing prices.
REAL ESTATE
China has introduced a range of measures aimed at curbing the real-estate market over the last year, such as bans on buying second homes, hiking minimum downpayments and introducing property taxes in select cities.
“For the purpose of promoting fairness and stability, the government’s controls cannot be relaxed,” he said.
One small city, Wuhu in the eastern province of Anhui, said last week it would offer subsidies for apartment purchases in a sign of easing, but it retreated from the policy over the weekend, state media reported.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
RSS