US President Barack Obama and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti agreed on Tuesday on the need to “intensify” growth and job creation, as Washington prepared the ground for this week’s G8 summit.
The leaders spoke by telephone ahead of the two-day meeting beginning at Camp David, Maryland on Friday, and also discussed strategy in the war in Afghanistan ahead of the NATO summit in Chicago starting on Sunday.
The call was the latest sign that momentum may be growing behind a push to emphasize the need for growth in the stricken eurozone, which is struggling to emerge from its economic crisis after several years of austerity policies.
Conversations about the need to spur growth as well as to cut spending were also enlivened by the election victory of French President Francois Hollande, who met austerity champion German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday.
Obama and Monti “discussed the current economic situation in Europe and agreed on the need to intensify efforts to promote growth and job creation,” the White House statement said. “The president looks forward to discussing these topics in further detail with the prime minister during the upcoming meeting of G8 leaders at Camp David this weekend.”
The discussion between Obama and Monti on Europe’s woes came on a day when Greece said it would likely hold new elections on June 17 after efforts to form a government after inclusive polls foundered.
Merkel said she and Hollande wanted Greece to stay in the euro, despite growing signs a voter rebellion over austerity could force it to pull out.
Paris and Berlin were also prepared “to study the possibility of additional growth measures in Greece” if Athens said they needed them, she said.
Meanwhile, Italy’s banking and business leaders attacked Moody’s mass downgrade of Italian banks on Tuesday, branding the move an irresponsible blow to the economically strapped country while it battles eurozone debt woes and economic recession.
Moody’s downgrade of 26 Italian banks is the first round of a wave of credit rating cuts that is expected to hit dozens of eurozone lenders, adding to their difficulties in raising funds and exacerbating an existing credit crunch.
The move, which Moody’s pinned on a weakening operating environment made worse by Monti’s tough austerity cure, came amid growing calls within the eurozone for a shift toward growth after months of strict fiscal discipline.
“Moody’s decision is an assault against Italy, its companies, its families,” Italian banking lobby ABI said. “Once more rating agencies turn out to be a destabilizing factor for financial markets with their partial and contradictory statements.”
Big business lobby chief Emma Marcegalia said she was concerned by such an “attack against Italy” and ABI head Giuseppe Mussari asked the European Central Bank and other European institutions to ignore the downgrade to avoid heightened funding strains and spiraling sovereign debt woes.
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