The euro touched a two-week low against the US dollar on signs the region’s economy is slowing amid political uncertainty in Italy and Spain.
The 17-nation currency held a three-day loss versus the yen before data forecast to show industrial production in France fell and with finance chiefs from the bloc set to meet in Brussels to discuss aid to Cyprus and Greece.
“There’s negative momentum behind the euro at the moment,” said Imre Speizer, a strategist in Auckland at Westpac Banking Corp. “You have more European risks apparent than a month ago.”
The euro yesterday touched US$1.3325, the lowest since Jan. 24, before trading at US$1.3384 at 6:10am in London, 0.2 percent above the close at the end of last week in New York. The euro was little changed at ¥123.92, after losing 2.6 percent in the past three sessions.
French industrial production slid 0.1 percent in December amid a slump in economic growth and mounting unemployment, the government’s statistics showed yesterday. The decline in the final month of the year came after a 0.5 percent increase in industrial production in November. On a year-on-year basis, the measure fell 2.1 percent.
European finance chiefs will seek to win back crisis-management momentum after markets signaled last week that the three-year crisis is far from over. Ministers from the eurozone met in Brussels yesterday.
However, analysts were not expecting much new from a eurozone finance ministers meeting, though markets will be on watch for any discussion on the strength of the euro ahead of the G20 meeting at the end of the week.
Since hitting a 15-month high of US$1.3711 on Feb. 1, sentiment toward the euro has shifted after European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi suggested any further strength could result in an interest rate cut. Nervousness over political developments in Spain and Italy has also unsettled the currency.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has faced calls to resign after newspaper reports alleged he accepted illegal cash payments. Opinion polls have shown former Italy prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was convicted of tax fraud last October, closing the gap on frontrunner Pier Luigi Bersani ahead of elections on Feb. 24 and 25.
“The euro has stabilized at lower levels following last week’s verbal intervention from ECB President Draghi, which was a subtle attempt to dampen the pace of euro appreciation in the near term,” Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ currency analyst Lee Hardman said.
An EU official said yesterday’s meeting would review the situation, but no accord is expected until a new Cypriot government is formed in March.
Eurozone ministers will likely also review progress on the key measures agreed last year — a single regulator for the banks and the working of the European Stability Mechanism, the bloc’s defense backstop.
Officials say ministers were also to honor respected former eurogroup president Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, who served for eight years, stepping down last month after overseeing a difficult overhaul of the euro’s shaky foundations.
The 17 eurozone finance ministers are scheduled to be joined by their 10 non-eurozone colleagues for the meeting today.
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