The IMF could be based in Beijing in a decade if growth trends for China and other big emerging markets continue and these are reflected in the fund’s voting structure, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said on Monday.
Lagarde said at a Center for Global Development event in Washington that such a move was “a possibility” because the fund will need to increase the representation of major emerging markets as their economies grow larger and more influential.
“Which might very well mean, that if we have this conversation in 10 years’ time ... we might not be sitting in Washington, DC. We’ll do it in our Beijing head office,” Lagarde said.
She added that the IMF’s bylaws call for the institution’s head office to be located in the largest member economy.
Since the IMF was launched in 1945, that has always been the US, which currently has an effective veto over IMF decisions with a 16.5 percent share of its board votes.
However, economists estimate that China, with growth rates forecast above 6 percent, will likely overtake the US’ GDP sometime over the next decade to become the world’s largest economy in nominal terms.
Some, including the IMF, have argued that China already contributes more to global growth on a purchasing power parity basis.
The IMF last revised its quota system in 2010, but is set to launch another review 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