British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond yesterday said that the UK had the fiscal capacity to cope with leaving the EU without any agreement, but believed the mood in Brussels was to reach a divorce deal.
Britain’s exit from the EU in March next year has increased uncertainty for employers, with talks about the relationship between the world’s fifth-largest economy and its largest trading partner becoming increasingly fraught.
“I’m clear that we will have the fiscal capacity to support the British economy if we were unfortunately to find ourselves in a no-deal situation,” Hammond told Sky News.
However, Hammond said the doubts about the future had already hit the economy and the next few weeks would be crucial in securing an agreement with the EU.
“The mood is undoubtedly that people want to do a deal with the UK. People want to minimize the disruption of the UK’s departure from the European Union, they want to continue having a relationship with us and smooth trading partnership in the future,” he told BBC TV.
“Clearly there has been a hit to the economy through the uncertainty the Brexit process has caused. Many businesses are sitting on their hands frankly waiting to see what the outcome of this negotiation is before confirming their investment plans,” he said.
Reassuring businesses that they remain at the heart of the center-right Conservatives Party’s plan for the economy was to be the focus of Hammond’s speech to his party’s conference yesterday.
The business community has expressed frustration over the British government’s lack of clarity during the Brexit process and what some see as a decision to put ideology before the economy.
“We back business as the cornerstone of a successful economy, as a force for good in our society, and as an essential expression of our values,” Hammond was scheduled to say in his speech to the party’s annual conference in Birmingham.
The British Chambers of Commerce said it wanted the Conservatives to overcome their internal divisions and “to deliver real-world, practical answers to business’s ongoing questions around Brexit.”
Last week, the opposition Labour Party sought to woo business bosses as it unveiled a raft of radical economic policies, saying the Conservatives had given them the opportunity to pitch an alternative leftist strategy.
Despite Brexit dominating political discussions, polls suggest it lags behind the state-run National Health Service as Britons’ greatest concern and Hammond said people would have to pay more in tax to fund extra investment.
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