UNITED KINGDOM
Firms see short-term growth
Companies based in the UK expect their expansion to accelerate over the next three months before the fallout from the Brexit vote starts to hit, according to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Recent growth has been led by manufacturing and distribution, with the former benefiting from the pound’s decline, the CBI said in a report published yesterday. Services remained flat. It sees investment and consumption starting to weaken next year on concern that negotiations to leave the EU will hurt trade and fan inflation. “The government can help keep the economy firing by pressing ahead with infrastructure commitments across the whole of the UK and by promoting innovation in the Autumn Statement,” CBI chief economist Rain Newton-Smith said.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY
India, Japan to ink deal
The Indian Ministry of Defense is today to agree to purchase 12 amphibious rescue aircraft from Japanese manufacturer ShinMaywa Industries worth from US$1.5 billion to US$1.6 billion, the Nikkei newspaper reported yesterday. Japan and India have been holding talks on the purchase for more than two years. It would be one of Japan’s first sales of military equipment since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted a 50-year ban on arms exports and it reflects growing defense ties between the two countries. India’s Defense Ministry is to approve the purchase of 12 US-2 aircraft at a Defense Acquisitions Council meeting scheduled for today, the Nikkei reported, citing senior ministry officials it did not name. The deal is to be included in a memorandum of understanding to be signed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan scheduled from Thursday to Saturday, the Nikkei said.
MACROECONOMICS
Portugal to make IMF wait
Portugal’s socialist government on Saturday said it would not make early payments of 6.6 billion euros (US$7.35 billion) in IMF loans this year in order to maintain financial reserves. “The early paybacks of the IMF loan will depend on market conditions and financing needs, including raising the capital” of the publicly owned Caixa Geral de Depositos bank, the Portuguese Ministry of Finance said in a statement. It wanted to keep reserves “adapted to market conditions” of 6.5 billion euros at the year-end, the statement said. Portugal paid back 2 billion euros to the IMF in February and, in September, Lisbon said it would aim to pay back 4 billion euros by next month.
EUROZONE
Juncker takes aim at ethicst
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he wants to change the ethics code following outrage over his predecessor’s decision to take a controversial job at US investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Jose Manuel Barroso joined the bank after waiting the compulsory 18 months following his exit from the senior EU job, but this has sparked wide condemnation and Juncker said in an interview on Saturday that he wanted to implement stricter rules. “We must change the ethics code,” he told Belgium’s Le Soir newspaper. Juncker said he would propose a longer “cooling off” period of three years from the current 18 months. For commissioners, Juncker said he favors a 24-month span instead of the present 18.
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