Greece will announce today the results of an unprecedented bond swap with private creditors to alleviate nearly a third of its enormous sovereign debt, a finance ministry source said yesterday.
“An announcement will be made at 0600 GMT on Friday on the official government site for the exchange (www.greekbonds.gr),” the finance ministry source said.
However, a late-night statement by Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos “could not be excluded,” the official added.
The exchange of Greek-law bonds, which ended at 8pm yesterday, aims to erase more than 100 billion euros (US$130 billion) of the country’s debt, which totals around 350 billion euros.
Those who hold debt issued under foreign law have until April 11 to decide. Greece would like to see 90 percent of private creditors take part, and has said it will not go through with the deal unless at least 75 percent do so.
Late Wednesday, more than half of the creditors concerned by the operation, a kind of controlled default of Greece’s privately held debt aimed at calming a crisis that concerns the entire eurozone, had agreed to participate.
Greek media yesterday put the participation at more than 70 percent, but the ministry official declined to confirm this.
“We do not know how the operation is proceeding, beans are being added as we speak,” the finance ministry source said.
Meanwhile, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Wednesday that Greece would face a “disaster” if its financial system cannot be saved.
“If we cannot save the financial system in Greece it would be a disaster for people in Greece,” Schaeuble told students at the European University Institute near Florence after meeting Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti during a visit to Italy.
“We have seen the danger all together in 2008. We were close to the brink. Maybe it would be a similar situation if we do not manage the situation,” Schaeuble said.
“Maybe you could say it was the wrong decision for Greece to join the common European currency,” he said, adding: “Greece has failed for a long time to deliver what is needed to be in a common European currency.”
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