UBS Group AG yesterday raised its forecast for the nation’s GDP growth next year from 2 percent to 2.2 percent on expectations that the government’s spending plans will deliver moderate support for expansion.
The Executive Yuan’s proposed budget for next year, which includes a special budget for the first phase of the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, projects total revenue of NT$1.897 trillion (US$62.3 billion) and total expenditures of NT$1.992 trillion over the next 12 months, which would result in an underwhelming deficit of NT$94 billion, or 1 percent of GDP, UBS economist Li Tzeng (曾立) said.
However, that deficit would still be slightly greater than the 0.9 percent of GDP this year and last year, he added.
The Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program accounts for 0.1 percent of this year’s deficit, UBS data showed.
CRITICAL ELEMENT
“The actual support to GDP growth will critically depend on the execution of the budget,” Tzeng said, adding that budget execution from 2012 to last year significantly fell short of the original plans.
While last year’s budget projected a deficit of 0.9 percent, the actual government deficit was only 0.3 percent.
The projected budget deficit of 0.9 percent in 2015 only produced an actual deficit of 0.1 percent, due to shortcomings in execution.
“If the central government can fully execute its budget in 2018, the boost to growth could be more substantial than indicated by the budgetary numbers,” Tzeng said.
IMPROVED OUTLOOKS
UBS has revised upward its GDP growth forecasts for the US, China and Japan next year from 2.2 percent, 6.2 percent and 1.5 percent to 2.3 percent, 6.4 percent and 1.8 percent respectively, he said.
The improved outlooks for the three economies implies a diminished external headwind for Taiwan next year, he added.
UBS maintained its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year unchanged at 2.2 percent.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics forecast that the nation’s GDP would grow 2.11 percent this year and 2.27 percent next year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”