If Taiwan is serious about raising its competitiveness in the region, the government should introduce more stimulus measures to boost the economy and better execute its plans, a senior economist at Barclays PLC said in Taipei yesterday.
Leong Wai Ho (梁偉豪), a senior regional economist with the British banking group, made the comments after cutting his forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth to 2.2 percent last week, from 3 percent, because of a softer first half.
“Taiwanese policymakers should try harder to grow the pie” before worrying about how to pursue better balanced distributions of wealth as it is trailing South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore in terms of competitiveness, Leong said.
TASK FORCE
Toward that end, the government needs to set up a larger task force in formulating industrial and economic development plans and speeding up construction of the “free economic pilot zones,” the MRT extension to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, he said.
The free economic pilot zones, in particular, would facilitate the return of Taiwanese firms overseas if they can really hire up to 40 percent foreign workers in the zones as labor costs are surging in China, Leong said.
“Niche products made in Taiwan would be very popular in China, which is transforming from a world factory to a mass market with rapid GDP growth despite a slowdown,” he said.
The benefits of the economic zones may not be evident in the near future, but they could become medium and long-term economic drivers, Leong said.
The government should also take the lead and spend more on public construction, with borrowed money if necessary, to encourage the private sector to do the same, he said.
Taiwanese private firms are being cautious about expansion despite a fair global economic landscape, he said.
Barclays forecast an export surge in the fourth quarter — if not in this quarter — when local technology companies in the consumer electronics supply chain will benefit from the launch of new-generation devices.
POSITIVE SIGNS
“Talks of the end of the quantitative easing [QE] would be groundless if the US economy is not on course for a gradual and steady recovery,” Leong said. “In my view, global markets assign too much attention to the QE exit and overlook positive economic data.”
Furthermore, debt-ridden Europe is likely to start emerging from a recession this quarter, he said.
The backdrop suggests more upside surprises than downside risks for Taiwan’s export-oriented economy, he said.
Barclays may raise the nation’s GDP growth forecast for this year to between 2.5 percent and 2.7 percent if exports resume their growth momentum, Leong said.
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