Headline inflation is expected to stay in check this year despite a spike in food prices, which is considered a key indication that the monetary policymaking body would retain benchmark interest rates during its upcoming quarterly meeting, central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said in a report prepared for an question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan tomorrow.
The central bank said in the report that the consumer price index (CPI) was relatively stable and rose at a slower pace than the world’s major economies. The nation’s CPI increased 1.39 percent annually in the first eight months.
However, food prices soared 4.04 percent annually in the first eight months of the year, with the cost of meat products, fruit and eating out rising at the fastest rates, the report said, citing data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
“Food price has risen faster, but a mild recovery in the global economy will drive lower prices and help keep overall inflation outlook under control,” the report said.
Under the economy’s steady growth momentum and with a mild rise in headline inflation, the bank’s tone reflected a higher possibility that policy rates may remain on hold for the 13th consecutive quarter at its board meeting on Thursday.
Also, the central bank said its move to extend credit-tightening measures on housing loans to eight additional areas in New Taipei City and Taoyuan County in late June has had some effect on maintaining financial stability and curbing speculative property transactions.
The banking sector saw the proportion of housing loans it adopted drop to 26.81 percent last month, from 27.62 percent recorded in June, with the amount of new housing loans in these newly added areas showing a significant decline, showing lighter concentration in real-estate-linked loans, data from the central bank showed.
Meanwhile, banks lowered loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for buyers of luxury homes to an average of 51.27 percent last month, down from between 85 percent and 90 percent recorded before the central bank’s warning in June, to prevent real-estate speculators from using mortgages to purchase multiple properties.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained