The World Bank yesterday raised its forecast for China’s economic growth this year to 6.8 percent from 6.7 percent it projected in October, as personal consumption and foreign trade supported growth.
However, the Washington-based lender kept its forecast for China’s GDP growth next year and in 2019 unchanged at 6.4 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, due to less accommodative monetary policy and the government’s effort to rein in credit and control leverage.
The key downside risks to the forecast are the still rising leverage of the non-financial sector and uncertainty around housing prices.
“Despite the recent slowdown, credit continues to grow considerably faster than GDP. Outstanding bank loans reached 150 percent of GDP in November 2017, up from 103 percent at the end of 2007,” the World Bank said in its China Economic Update.
China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected 6.9 percent in the first nine months of the year, but Beijing’s campaign to reduce risks in the financial sector has pushed up borrowing costs, raising concerns GDP growth could take a hit next year.
However, strong growth so far this year has given policymakers an opportunity to accelerate deleveraging, which is “likely to come at the cost of slower GDP growth in the near term, but will improve China’s long-term economic prospects,” the World Bank report said.
External risks to China’s economy include the potential for more restrictive trade policies in advanced economies and geopolitical tensions, the report said.
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