Europe’s economic slowdown will remain temporary and growth will pick up from the fourth quarter of this year, RAI reported, citing an interview with European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet.
“We have a trough in the second and third quarter this year and after this trough we will have a progressive increase in growth,” Trichet told the Italian broadcaster on Saturday. “We’ll have a gradual recovery in the course of 2009.”
Trichet said the current turbulence in financial markets is “a process going on,” adding that the ECB would “remain very alert permanently.”
Trichet also said that the economic squeeze had “hit rock bottom,” telling Italian television that he expects a “gradual revival” over the course of next year.
“Going by our calculations, just published, during the second and third quarters of this year, we hit rock bottom,” he told RAI 1 on the sidelines of an economic forum attended by political leaders at Lake Como, Italy.
The eurozone economy contracted 0.2 percent in the second quarter of this year and finance ministers from France and Belgium called again last week for the ECB to consider measures that would boost economic activity when it determines the level of interest rates for the zone.
The ECB left its main lending rate unchanged at 4.25 percent on Thursday and Trichet’s comments at a subsequent press conference implied it would remain steady for some time.
He underscored the need to prevent a second round of inflationary pressures that might be created by strong wage demands and said that the current inflation rate of 3.8 percent was worrying.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
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