German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Brazil on Sunday that she would do her utmost to bring to a successful end the 15-year-old negotiation of a free-trade deal between the EU and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc.
Merkel, stopping in the Brazilian capital on her way to see the German soccer team play in the World Cup yesterday, said Germany and Brazil, the two largest economies in Europe and Latin America, had much to gain from more trade and investment.
“We have a lot of interest in reaching a free-trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union,” Merkel said in a statement to reporters after meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. “I will do what is possible so that we can take a step forward and overcome the obstacles.”
Photo: AFP
Merkel and Rousseff discussed expanded cooperation in scientific research and the energy sector, including renewable energy, and joint ventures to increase investment flows.
However, freeing up trade flows between the two countries has been held back by the drawn-out negotiations of a free-trade accord between Europe and the Mercosur trade bloc formed by Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and, more recently, Venezuela.
Off and on talks have been held since 1999 and were taken up again in 2010 after a six-year freeze. Talks have floundered in the past over European agricultural subsidies and the opening of Mercosur industries to competition from Europe.
In countries like Ireland, farmers fear their meat production cannot compete with the likes of Argentina and Brazil, now the world’s largest beef and chicken exporter.
In the midst of an economic crisis, Argentina has dragged its feet on drawing up a list of European products that would be allowed to enter Mercosur free of tariffs.
Mercosur’s newest member, Venezuela, has been left out of talks with Europe as it is not ready to compete.
Brazil, a regional powerhouse that is seeking more trade to boost its stagnant economy, feels it is being left behind by advances in the negotiation of trade pacts between Pacific nations and between the EU and the US.
The EU and Mercosur were due to exchange proposals by the end of last year outlining the limits of the duty-free access they are willing to offer in markets ranging from beef to cars to create a pact that would encompass 750 million people and US$130 billion in annual trade.
The deadline was extended and the lists are not expected to be exchanged before next month, after the World Cup hosted by Brazil.
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
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