Asian currencies gained this week for the first time since April on optimism stimulus measures in the world’s largest economies will support regional exports.
Policymakers in China cut their deposit rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent, while South Korea kept the seven-day repurchase rate unchanged at 3.25 percent on Friday. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said he expects better growth in the coming quarters, after the Philippine economy expanded at the fastest pace since 2010 last quarter. Asian currencies pared their weekly advance after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said fresh monetary stimulus would need further assessment.
“China has the scope to take more measures to cushion the economic slowdown,” said Sim Moh Siong, a currency strategist at Bank of Singapore Ltd (新加坡銀行). “The outlook for Asian economies is still cloudy because the global situation, especially in Europe, is still one of muddling along.”
The New Taiwan dollar slipped 0.2 percent on the week to close at NT$29.976.
Malaysia’s ringgit led with a 0.8 percent weekly advance to 3.185 versus its US counterpart. The peso gained 0.3 percent to 43.27 and South Korea’s won rose 0.2 percent to 1,175.3. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s 10 most-traded currencies excluding the yen, climbed 0.2 percent to 114.16 this week. The gauge declined in each of the past five weeks, the longest losing streak since 2008.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of regional shares dropped 1.3 percent on Friday, halting a three-day advance and trimming its gain for the week to 0.1 percent, after Bernanke told US lawmakers the central bank would assess economic conditions before deciding if a third round of so-called quantitative easing is needed.
“There are still jitters on the global front and at best the US wants to keep the QE3 possibility vague for now,” said Enrico Tanuwidjaja, a Singapore-based senior currency analyst at Malayan Banking BHD.
Overseas investors sold US$550 million more shares than they bought in Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand this week, exchange data show.
“The market expects some bad data out of China and currencies of export-driven economies like Thailand will be affected,” Tanuwidjaja said.
The baht declined 0.5 percent to 31.71 per US dollar, paring a weekly advance to 0.6 percent.
Elsewhere, Indonesia’s rupiah gained 0.6 percent this week to 9,473 per US dollar, while India’s rupee climbed 0.2 percent to 55.475. The Vietnamese dong fell 0.7 percent to 21,000.
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],”
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
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