An index of economic monitoring indicators rose 1 point last month to 20, flashing another “yellow-blue” light, as the economy remained stagnant, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.
The council uses a five-color spectrum to gauge domestic economic health, with “blue” signaling recession, “yellow-blue” a slowdown, “green” steady growth, “yellow-red” a slight overheating and “red” overheating.
MIXED DATA
“The data last month showed a mixture of improvements and declines, which suggests that the economy is still struggling and that growth momentum is weak,” Hung Jui-bin (洪瑞彬), director-general of the council’s economic research department, told a press conference.
Furthermore, growing concerns about the European debt crisis and spending cuts in the US increased uncertainty about exports, Hung said.
He added that it was still difficult to say when economic conditions would head in a positive direction.
The score of composite monitoring indicators — which take into account both leading and coincident indicators — reached 20 last month because of higher industrial production, non-agricultural employment, and imports of machinery and electrical equipment.
The index of leading economic indicators, which is used to gauge short-term economic outlook, gained 1.1 percent last month from a month earlier to 137.6 points, posting its seventh consecutive increase, the council’s monthly report showed.
The index’s annualized six-month rate of change, which provides a more accurate forecast of the business cycle in the near term, climbed 1.1 percentage points to 9.8 percent last month from a month earlier, the report said.
COINCIDENT INDICATORS
The index of coincident indicators, which reflects monthly economic conditions, fell 0.1 percent to 98.8 points last month, its ninth consecutive decline.
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