British banking group Barclays PLC yesterday hacked its forecast for GDP growth in Taiwan by 1.7 percentage points to 2 percent for this year, after poor exports dragged down the nation’s showing in the second quarter and might continue to weigh it down.
“Exports cut more deeply into growth last quarter, meriting a significant downward revision,” Barclays senior regional economist Leong Wai Ho (梁偉豪) said in a research note.
Taiwan turned out not to be immune to a slowdown in industrialized Asia, as evidenced by poor exports that subtracted 0.9 percentage points from growth last quarter, the economist said.
The government’s advance reading for GDP growth printed 0.64 percent during the April-to-June period, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said last week and is due to update its growth projection later this month.
The figure is markedly weaker than the forecast by Barclays of 3 percent and the market consensus of 2.6 percent, Wai said.
Wai attributed the disappointing data mainly to a more gradual recovery in the US and outages at petrochemical exporters.
Compounding the headwinds was the persistent inventory overhang in electronics, which is now prompting technology companies to temper their expectations for a more modest pickup in the second half, the economist said.
Barclays stood by its expectation of a moderate acceleration in business activity in coming quarters, aided by new electronics product launches and generally steadier support from the US and Europe.
Against the current backdrop, the central bank would keep its loose monetary policy for a while longer in order to support economic growth, Wai said.
“As such, we push back our rate normalization forecast by two quarters and now expect the first rate hike of 12.5 basis points in June next year,” he said, adding the bank could raise the level of excess liquidity in the coming months.
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
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