The yuan may stop appreciating against the US dollar this year after weakening nearly 3 percent thus far due to softening economic growth and the US Federal Reserve’s tapering of its quantitative easing, Standard Chartered Bank said yesterday.
The British banking group expects the yuan to trade at 6.04 against the greenback toward the end of the year, compared with 6.05 at the beginning of the year, Hong Hong-based Standard Chartered strategist Becky Liu (劉潔) told a media briefing in Taipei.
The expected flat performance will put an end to four consecutive years of yuan appreciation that has driven investors across the world to increase stakes in the currency.
“We maintain a positive view on the yuan in the long run, despite recent corrections that may soon stabilize as China’s economy gains better growth momentum this quarter onward,” Liu said.
China’s GDP growth slowed to 7.4 percent last quarter, down from 7.7 percent three months earlier, but recent major economic data suggest its trade may have bottomed out and it will show more strength, Liu said.
Standard Chartered’s yuan forecast suggests a reversing trend going forward as the currency closed little changed at 6.2376 against the US dollar on the China Foreign Exchange Trading System yesterday, although dipping 0.15 percent briefly to 6.2466, its weakest since Dec. 14, 2012, according to Bloomberg.
The currency has shed 2.9 percent this year, making it the worst performer in Asia.
Standard Chartered expects Taiwan’s yuan deposits to hit 300 billion yuan (US$48.09 billion) this year after having probably increased to 260 billion yuan last month.
Demand for yuan remains healthy given China’s current account surplus, she said, adding that the currency may gather further support after regulatory easing in Shanghai’s free-trade zone is launched, likely in the second half of the year.
The yuan has become the world’s eighth-largest payment currency and is on course to become a reserve currency, Liu said.
Standard Chartered keeps a neutral view on offshore yuan bonds, with Dim Sum bond yields likely to stay range-bound amid flush liquidity and strong supply.
Dim Sum bond issuance is expected to total between 550 billion and 580 billion yuan this year, with its market value standing at 572 billion as of December last year, the bank said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”