Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) yesterday said Taiwan should keep a more positive attitude toward regional economic integration and that the nation needs to raise its economic momentum.
“Taiwan’s economy is still recovering, but the momentum is not strong,” Perng said in a legislative question-and-answer session.
Moreover, China’s economic structure is changing, which may drag down Taiwan’s export sector, he said.
Exports unexpectedly dropped by 7 percent last month from a year earlier and Perng said the four-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday was the main seasonal factor, adding that exports this month may show a rebound.
However, the central bank head expressed his worries that Taiwan’s financial industry may see its development hindered if the legislature does not pass the cross-strait service trade agreement before the end of this legislative session.
Perng did not specify if Taiwan’s economic growth is capable of reaching 2 percent this year, saying only that forecasts by 18 domestic or foreign economic institutes are for about 2.2 percent GDP growth this year.
Meanwhile, he reiterated that people should watch out for possible interest rate hikes, as housing loans have accounted for more than 30 percent of household income in Taiwan.
The central bank’s latest statistics, released yesterday, showed outstanding balances on housing loans and construction loans for last month, both reaching their highest-ever levels.
Construction loans increased 0.48 percent to NT$1.486 trillion (US$50.44 billion) from August, while housing loans were also up 0.48 percent to NT$5.541 trillion, the data showed.
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],”
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
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