Malaysia’s government on Friday forecast slower growth next month and announced measures to spur demand in an economy bedeviled by slumping oil prices and corruption allegations aimed at the prime minister.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak offered increased handouts to the poor, tax breaks, stepped-up investment and accelerated public infrastructure projects to help stimulate the economy and ease living costs.
Hitting back at critics of his leadership, Najib declared that Malaysia was “not a failed state or bankrupt nation,” as he presented the country’s 2016 budget in the Parliament of Malaysia on Friday.
He forecast economic growth of 4 to 5 percent next year, down from an expected 4.5 to 5.5 percent this year.
Although growth remains relatively strong — 4.9 percent in the second quarter — global economic uncertainty and depressed oil prices have clouded the future.
The uncertainty has caused the ringgit to plummet, making it the worst-performing Asian currency this year.
“In reality, Malaysia is not a failed or bankrupt nation, but one which is stable with strong economic fundamentals and remains competitive,” Najib said.
Najib also defended an unpopular consumption tax introduced earlier this year, which he said had helped cushion a reduction in government revenue caused by slower oil-related earnings.
The economy has also been hit by the uncertainty posed by a huge financial scandal implicating Najib, which has rocked his long-ruling party.
Critics have for months demanded he explain allegations of massive sums missing from state-owned company 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Najib and 1MDB have fiercely denied any wrongdoing.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts