The central bank is unlikely to adjust interest rates in the short term even in the face of a weakening Japanese yen, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) said yesterday in its latest weekly research note.
“We believe the central bank will continue to ensure the ‘orderly functioning’ of the foreign exchange market and will emphasize stability in response to global currency volatility,” the bank said.
The central bank’s next quarterly policymaking meeting is scheduled for next month. It maintained its benchmark discount rate at 1.875 percent at its last meeting in March for the seventh consecutive quarter.
Rates were last adjusted in June 2011, when the central bank increased the benchmark discount rate by 12.5 basis points to 1.875 percent.
With Taiwan’s economic recovery sluggish and inflationary pressure limited, the central bank is expected to keep interest rates unchanged for most of the year, with the first policy rate hike forecast to take place in the fourth quarter at the earliest, ANZ said.
ANZ said it expects Taiwan’s growth momentum to pick up a little in the second quarter and accelerate through the rest of the year, in conjunction with predicted pick-ups in China and the US.
It reiterated its 3.6 percent GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year, with China’s estimated to reach 7.8 percent and Hong Kong’s 2.5 percent.
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