German business confidence unexpectedly rose for the first time in seven months after Europe’s largest economy returned to growth.
The Ifo institute’s business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, advanced to 104.7 this month from 103.2 last month. Economists predicted a decline to 103, according to the median of 41 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
German GDP increased 0.1 percent in the three months through September after a contraction in the previous quarter, and investor sentiment climbed for the first time in 11 months this month. Even so, the pace of the recovery remains sluggish and the Bundesbank has said the economy will lack momentum at least until the end of the year.
“We see some stabilization, but I don’t see any reason for enthusiasm,” said Jens-Oliver Niklasch, a fixed-income strategist at Landesbank Baden Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart. “Well-known risks to the economy such as the crisis in the Ukraine haven’t really receded.”
Thousands of German companies are seeing business hit by EU sanctions imposed on Russia because of its involvement in a conflict in Ukraine. Zeppelin GmbH, a German machinery provider, says it faces a sales decline of about 40 percent in the two eastern European countries.
German manufacturing and services expanded at the slowest pace in 16 months this month. The economy is symptomatic of the muted revival in the euro area as a whole, which saw growth of 0.2 percent last quarter.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said last week that policymakers would add stimulus to the region if needed to boost consumer prices and spur growth. In a flurry of activity since June, the ECB has cut interest rates, offered long-term loans to banks and bought covered bonds and asset-backed securities.
“We will do what we must to raise inflation and inflation expectations as fast as possible,” Draghi said on Friday.
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