Australia’s federal budget, targeting a return to surplus next fiscal year, is taking a conservative view of Europe’s economic outlook, forecasting a 0.75 percent contraction this year, Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said.
“Determined, consistent and continuing action will be required by European policymakers to deal with the sovereign debt crisis, get their budgets back on a sustainable footing, and restore growth,” Swan said in his weekly economic note. Australia’s “budget takes a conservative view of Europe’s economic outlook, with the euro area forecast to contract by 0.75 percent in 2012.”
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s minority government, seeking to impress voters as a sound economic manager, this month promised to achieve a surplus of A$1.54 billion (US$1.52 billion) for fiscal 2012-2013, ending four years of deficits. Her Labor Party faces a general election next year.
“Australia is not immune from events in Europe,” Swan said in the note. “But it’s important we don’t lose sight of the fact that our economic credentials are among the strongest in the world: We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world, we have sturdy public finances with very low public debt.”
The economy of the 17-member eurozone will contract 0.3 percent this year, the median forecast of 41 analysts compiled by Bloomberg shows. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Saturday night that turmoil in the financial markets caused by Europe’s debt crisis may last another two years, as G8 leaders prepared to discuss Greece and its impact on the global economy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and fellow European leaders face pressure from their G8 counterparts to do more to quell the crisis after almost US$4 trillion was wiped from global equity markets this month amid speculation that Greece will exit the euro.
Australia, whose biggest trading partner China is driving demand for the nation’s minerals and energy exports, is well equipped to withstand outside shocks as investment in mining projects continues, Swan said.
“We have contained inflation, we have a huge pipeline of mining investment and we have a budget returning to surplus next financial year ahead of every single major advanced economy,” he said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained