Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said the nation needs to adapt to a “new normal” in the pace of economic growth and remain “cool-minded” amid a growth slowdown.
China’s growth fundamentals have not changed and the country is still in a “significant period of strategic opportunity,” Xi said, according to a Xinhua news agency report on the central government Web site late on Saturday.
At the same time, the government must prevent risks and take “timely countermeasures to reduce potential negative effects,” he said.
China’s policymakers are trying to keep economic expansion from slipping below Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s (李克強) target for this year of about 7.5 percent, while reining in a credit boom that a central bank official said threatens to undermine the financial system.
Beijing has so far limited its support to tax breaks and speeding up infrastructure and social housing investment, with Li saying previously that the focus remains on the quality of growth and on changing the structure of the economy.
The government will continue to balance the relationship between economic expansion, reform, restructuring, improving people’s well-being and preventing risks to ensure sound economic growth and social stability, Xi said during an inspection tour to the central province of Henan on Friday and Saturday, Xinhua said.
“We must boost our confidence, adapt to the new normal condition based on the characteristics of China’s economic growth in the current phase and stay cool-minded,” he said.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index of stocks has dropped 5 percent this year on concern that growth is slowing. A measure of industrial companies in the CSI 300 gauge has slumped 12 percent, and fell as much as 1 percent on May 9 to the lowest level since November 2008.
GDP increased 7.4 percent in the first quarter, the least since 2012, and is forecast to expand 7.3 percent this year, the weakest pace since 1990, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey last month.
Li said last month the government will not adopt “short-term and strong stimulus policies in response to temporary fluctuations in the economy.”
People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) reiterated that stance on Saturday at a conference in Beijing, according to a report of his comments posted on the sina.com Web site.
Zhou told a closed-door session of the forum that the central bank is always fine-tuning its policies and some of that is invisible to the market, the report said.
Zhou was responding to a question about whether a cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratio is imminent, it said.
Meanwhile, government efforts to curb dangers posed by a surge in shadow banking risk exacerbating the economic slowdown. Any crackdown on interbank borrowing and wealth management products would withdraw liquidity that has funded speculative investment, leading to bankruptcies and defaults.
Bank Deputy Governor Liu Shiyu (劉士餘) said on Saturday that shadow banking threatens to undermine the financial system and called for tougher rules to control an industry that has driven up borrowing costs and done little to support the economy and productivity.
Shadow finance has created a “gambling” mindset, as money lured by higher returns is channeled into short-term investments, Liu said at a conference in Beijing.
Li Daokui (李稻葵), a former academic adviser to the central bank, said yesterday at the same conference that the commercial banking sector is the greatest danger to the economy and that credit risks are accumulating as growth slows.
Shadow banking needs to be more transparent and brought under tight control, he 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],”