A decision by Germany and China to make Frankfurt a European hub for financial transactions in the Chinese currency will give new momentum to trade between the two economic powers, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and a German minister said on Saturday.
In a speech to German politicians and business leaders in the city of Dusseldorf, Xi said setting up the hub for the yuan in Germany “represents an important step on the road of the internationalization of our currency,” according to a translation.
The Bundesbank and the People’s Bank of China signed an agreement on Friday to facilitate transactions in the Chinese currency in Frankfurt and to cooperate more closely in clearing and settlement arrangements of yuan payments.
Up to now, transactions in China’s currency have been impractical for all but very large European companies that are able to involve China’s central bank in a deal, because the yuan is not freely convertible.
German Federal Minister of Economics and Energy Sigmar Gabriel said having the clearing bank in Frankfurt would help trade between the two economic powers.
“Our goal is an economic partnership of equals,” Gabriel said.
The Chinese leader’s first visit to Germany since becoming president last year saw the signing of business deals that will add to trade that was worth about 140 billion euros (US$192 billion) last year.
Annual trade flows between China, the world’s second-biggest economy, and Germany, Europe’s largest, exceed Chinese trade with France, Britain and Italy combined.
Xi said China would pursue its course of reforms, but would not simply follow the “old road of the industrial nations,” but would rather embrace sustainable development, even if this meant slower growth.
The Chinese leader said Germany and China could intensify their relationship by buying stakes in each others’ companies and said trade disputes should be resolved through dialogue.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts