China’s economy likely grew by about 7 percent last year and added 13 million new jobs, the top economic planning agency said yesterday as it announced the approval of more large infrastructure projects to avert the risks of a sharper slowdown.
China achieved its main economic targets last year, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Secretary-General and spokesman Li Pumin (李樸民) told a news conference, a week before official fourth-quarter and full-year figures for last year are to be released.
Li’s comments come as a renewed plunge in Chinese stock markets and a sharp slide in the yuan have stoked concerns among global investors about the health of the world’s second-largest economy, though there is little evidence that conditions in China have deteriorated dramatically in recent weeks.
Still, growth of 7 percent would be the slowest in a quarter of a century, and down from 7.3 percent in 2014 as weak demand at home and abroad, industrial overcapacity and faltering investment weigh on the economy.
Some China watchers believe real growth levels are already much weaker than official data suggest, reinforcing expectations that the government will have to roll out more support measures this year.
China approved 280 fixed asset investment projects worth 2.52 trillion yuan (US$383.44 billion) last year, Li said.
Thirty-two projects worth 515.1 billion yuan were approved last month alone.
The government has flagged that it intends to spend more on infrastructure to shore up economic activity, but it has faced delays, partly due to slow loan distribution, poor initial planning and high local government debt levels.
“I think there is little connection between the falling stock markets and the real economy,” said Shen Lan (沈嵐), an economist at Standard Chartered in Beijing. “Actually, economic indicators in November already showed the economy gained more momentum.”
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