The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) raised its forecasts for UK economic growth and said it expects business investment and trade to aid the recovery starting next year.
The business lobby sees the economy expanding 1.4 percent this year and 2.4 percent next year, it said in a quarterly report yesterday. That is up from 1.2 percent and 2.3 percent projected in August. The London-based group also said that unemployment — which the Bank of England has set as the key indicator for its guidance on policy — will fall to 7.2 percent by the end of 2015 from its current 7.7 percent.
“The recovery won’t be spectacular, just slow and steady, but appears more solid and better-rooted,” CBI director-general John Cridland said. “We’re also expecting business investment to pick up over the next two years and beyond, and net trade will begin to make a stronger contribution to growth.”
UK economic growth accelerated to its fastest pace in more than three years in the third quarter as the recovery continued across all main industries. Bank of England (BOE) Governor Mark Carney will present new quarterly forecasts on Nov. 13 and some economists say officials may bring forward their projection for when unemployment will reach a 7 percent threshold.
Carney has said he plans to keep the BOE’s benchmark interest rate at a record low at least until joblessness falls to that level, which the central bank does not see happening until late 2016.
“Our forecast is for the unemployment rate to fall back only gradually, as hours worked increase and productivity begins to recover,” the CBI said. “Our central expectation is that interest rates will remain on hold out to the end of 2015.”
GDP growth will slow to 0.5 percent in the current quarter after expansion of 0.8 percent in the three months through September partly due to the “volatility of trade and investment data,” the CBI said.
Annual growth will accelerate to 2.6 percent in 2015 as household disposable income and business and housing investment increase, it 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],”
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