The nation’s economy may grow moderately this year, with no financial crisis expected to strike the global economy, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday, while revising upward its GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.63 percent.
That was compared with a 3.6 percent growth forecast the Taipei-based think tank made in December last year.
“The economy in Taiwan this year exhibits the traits of steady expansion,” CIER president Wu Chung-shu (吳中書) told a press conference.
The institute expects GDP in the first quarter to grow 3.28 percent from a year earlier — the slowest quarter of the year — followed by an acceleration in expansion quarter by quarter to 3.36 percent, 3.91 percent and 3.94 percent the rest of the year.
The think tank also forecast that the nation’s GDP growth next year would be 4.07 percent.
A strong rebound in private investment, which is expected to increase 5.62 percent from last year, would be the main driver for the nation’s economy this year, Wu said.
Private consumption would post 2.57 percent growth this year, with exports and imports expected to grow 5.25 percent and 5.03 percent respectively, the institute said in its report.
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) chief economist Jack Huang (黃蔭基), who also attended the press conference, said no global financial crisis is expected this year, although the eurozone debt crisis remains worthy of scrutiny.
Inflationary pressures will not be an issue for this year either, Huang said, as the institute forecast a 1.6 percent rise in the consumer price index (CPI) this year, slowing from 1.93 percent last year.
However, inflationary pressures may resurface next year, after the government raises electricity prices in the fourth quarter of this year, Huang said.
Wu said the bombings in Boston in the US and the recent outbreak of H7N9 avian flu in China could impact Taiwan’s economy, but added that this would only be temporary and would not alter the nation’s improving economic outlook.
However, potential currency wars remain one major challenge for the global economy this year and the depreciation of major Asian currencies ahead may lead the central bank to appropriately cap the value of the New Taiwan (NT) dollar this year, said Liu Meng-chun (劉孟俊), director of the institute’s center for economic forecasting.
The NT dollar closed down NT$0.001 at NT$29.928 against the greenback in Taipei trading yesterday.
The institute forecast that the NT dollar would average NT$29.79 against its US counterpart this year, down from NT$29.62 last year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”