Washington’s budget tightening is having a minimal effect on businesses, a survey of business economists released yesterday shows.
The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) survey asks how higher taxes and lower government spending affected businesses in the first three months of this year.
Ninety-three percent of respondents say the political developments had no effect on employment levels in the first quarter, and 95 percent say they had no impact on capital spending plans.
Overall, the results paint a picture of businesses feeling better than they were in the fourth quarter, but not as good as they were a year ago.
The NABE did caution, however, that businesses might have already accounted for the higher taxes and lower government spending in the fourth quarter, and adjusted their hiring and spending plans before the end of last year.
The NABE surveyed 58 members between March 19 and April 2 representing a variety of sectors, including finance, transportation, health care and manufacturing.
Expectations for the future followed a pattern similar to many of the other results — better than the fourth quarter, worse than a year ago. Sixty-five percent said they expect the economy to grow by more than 2 percent over the next year, up from 50 percent in the fourth quarter, but down from 78 percent a year ago.
Overall, they listed global economic conditions, the possibility of further government spending cuts and the “regulatory environment” as their biggest concerns for the next three months. The services industry, including retail, health care and restaurants, was most concerned with the possibility of further government spending cuts. The finance industry and goods producers, such as manufacturing and construction companies, were most concerned by global economic conditions.
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