The nation’s GDP growth is expected to increase 2.1 percent next year on the back of a global recovery, DBS Bank said yesterday.
The forecast is higher than the 1.87 percent expansion forecast by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) earlier this month.
The government agency expects GDP to grow 1.35 percent annually this year, which is also lower than the annual growth rate of 1.5 percent projected by the Singapore-based bank.
DBS said the technology sector would be the main driver for the nation’s economic growth next year.
As Apple Inc is to roll out the first redesign of its smartphone in the past three years, it might spark a demand spike not seen since 2012, Singapore-based DBS Bank economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said.
Despite the improved outlook, the recovery is not expected to stimulate tangible growth in employment, wages or demand, Ma said.
Although the technology sector represents 15 percent of the nation’s economy, it only employs 8 percent of the workforce. Earnings prospects for non-technology and services sectors remain uncertain in the absence of favorable developments, she said.
Taiwan’s economic growth could face immediate challenges from its aging population beginning next year, she said.
“An aging population is the primary cause leading to Taiwan’s low-trending interest rates and growth,” Ma said.
The workforce began to decline this year and by the end of next year, the number of retirees more than 64 years old is expected to overtake the number of people under 15 years old, Ma said.
By 2018, retirees would make up 14 percent of the population, posing a significant drag to growth momentum, Ma said, adding that the demographic shift would also affect the real-estate market, as the number of first-time home buyers diminishes.
However, an aging population would spur development in the medical and healthcare industries.
The local market would continue to contract as the population ages and compel businesses to seek investment opportunities abroad, she said.
As a result, private funds have been flowing out of Taiwan seeking higher returns, in particular life insurers, who are hard pressed to meet repayment needs for the growing number of retired policy subscribers.
At the same time, the pace of private capital outflow is expected to accelerate following the US Federal Reserve’s expected rate hike, but the trend is not a cause for concern, as private capital outflows are typically more orderly and can be government regulated, she said.
Ma is not concerned about the more severe market disruptions from the flight of foreign capital from Taiwan, as with other emerging economies, due to a limited exposure to foreign debt and sound balance of payments.
She added that DBS sees a more hawkish Fed next year and expects a total of four interest rate hikes, compared with the general consensus of two.
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