GERMANY
Industrial orders decline
Industrial orders fell unexpectedly in August as demand from non-eurozone countries weakened, raising worries a slowdown in China will cut into exports from Europe’s biggest economy. Contracts for goods declined by 1.8 percent on the month, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy said. The data enhances a picture of waning demand from abroad, especially China and other emerging markets. That suggests the strong exports that supported growth in the first half could lose momentum.
REAL ESTATE
UK house prices dip
UK house prices last month declined the most in more than a year, according to Halifax, which said strengthening demand means the dip may be temporary. The average cost of a home fell 0.9 from the previous month, the mortgage lender said in a statement yesterday. Prices had surged 2.7 percent in August and Halifax said that monthly changes are volatile. From a year earlier, prices rose 8.5 percent last month, while they advanced 2 percent in the third quarter.
MACROECONOMICS
US service sector slows
Growth in the US services sector slowed last month as sales fell and new orders plunged, evidence that stock market volatility may have hit consumer confidence and limited spending. The Institute for Supply Management on Monday said that its services index fell to 56.9 last month from 59 in August, which was the second-highest reading in a decade. Any reading above 50 signals expansion.
INTEREST RATES
Fed could delay hike
Goldman Sachs Group Inc says there is a chance the US Federal Reserve could delay its planned interest-rate increase well into next year, or even later. While a December liftoff is still the company’s central forecast, a slowdown in output and employment may justify policymakers keeping the near zero rate policy for “much longer, well into 2016 or potentially even beyond,” Jan Hatzius, the bank’s New York-based head economist, wrote in a note to clients. The probability the central bank will increase rates this year has dropped to 35.2 percent, from 60 percent odds at the end of August, according to a Bloomberg survey.
ARGENTINA
Debt repayment met
The government on Monday repaid US$5.9 billion of its debt in keeping with its repayment schedule, though a longstanding dispute with US hedge funds remains. “The payment has been made on time. We have met our commitment with one of the largest repayments in about two decades,” central bank President Alejandro Vanoli said. The payment was made by drawing on the nation’s foreign exchange reserves, which showed a balance of US$27.7 billion on Monday.
MACROECONOMICS
Latin America contracting
Latin America’s economies will contract by 0.3 percent this year as a weak global economy, falling commodity prices and China’s slowdown continue hammering emerging markets, a UN panel said on Monday. The slowdown will hit hardest in ailing regional powerhouse Brazil, which is facing a contraction of 2.8 percent, and in crisis-hit oil giant Venezuela, which is on track for a 6.7 percent contraction, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean said. The commission forecast a return to growth of 0.7 percent for the region next year.
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