MACROECONOMICS
Philippine economy grows
Philippine officials say that the economy expanded by 6.4 percent in the second quarter and that equal with Malaysia it was the second-fastest-growing economy in Asia during the period. The government statistics agency reported yesterday that growth was higher than the 5.6 percent posted in the first quarter, driven by industry, which grew by 7.8 percent, followed by services, which saw growth of 6 percent. Philippine Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the economy is “back on the higher trajectory” and on track to hit its target of 6.5 to 7.5 percent GDP growth for this year.
FRANCE
Unemployment at new high
Unemployment in France struck a new high last month, official statistics published on Wednesday showed, in another blow for the deeply unpopular French President Francois Hollande. The French labor ministry said there were now 3.424 million people out of work, a rise of around 26,000. The 0.8 percent rise compared with the previous month was the ninth consecutive gain in monthly unemployment figures.
MACROECONOMICS
Spanish economy edges up
The Spanish economy grew by 0.6 percent in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter, the fastest rate since 2007, Spain’s national statistics office said yesterday. The Spanish economy grew by 1.2 percent over 12 months, following four consecutive quarters of expansion, the statistics office said in a statement. The second-quarter growth figures were in line with preliminary figures for the period released by the office on July 30.
SOUTH KOREA
US$8 billion in the black
South Korea registered almost a US$8 billion current account surplus last month, but the figure had slipped marginally from the previous month, the central bank said. The current account, the broadest measure of foreign trade in goods and services, showed a surplus of US$7.91 billion compared to the US$7.92 billion seen the previous month and down from the US$7.99 billion recorded a year earlier, the Bank of Korea said. With last month’s figure, the surplus for Asia’s fourth-largest economy in the first seven months of the year totaled US$47 billion, up 20 percent from the same period last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Kia to open Mexican plant
South Korean carmaker Kia Motors on Wednesday announced plans to build its first auto assembly plant in Mexico. The US$1 billion plant is to be built near the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico and would begin operations in 2016. It slated to have state-of-the-art technology and the capacity to make 300,000 vehicles a year, the company’s vice president for global strategy Lee Hyung-kun said.
MACROECONOMICS
US deficit figures revised up
The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) raised its forecast for the US fiscal deficit this year on Wednesday, but said it would still be much lower than last year’s. The CBO also reiterated its medium-term view that the US deficit would begin accelerating at the end of this decade, gaining size in real terms and as a percentage of GDP. The office’s new estimate for the deficit for the year ending Sept. 30 is US$506 billion, out of a US$3.5 trillion budget, slightly higher than the US$492 billion it estimated in April.
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