Fitch Ratings on Friday maintained Britain’s long-time “AA” debt rating, but warned of risks connected to a potentially difficult Brexit transition.
Concerns are mounting that the UK could in March exit the EU without a deal in place with Brussels, an outcome widely seen as a worst-case scenario that would have a disastrous impact on the economy.
“In Fitch’s view, an intensification of political divisions within the UK, about both the aspects of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the framework for future EU-UK relations, has impeded progress in the Brexit negotiations and increased the likelihood of an acrimonious and disruptive ‘no deal’ Brexit,” the agency said.
“Such an outcome would substantially disrupt customs, trade and economic activity, and has led Fitch to abandon its base case on which the ratings were previously predicated,” it said.
“Uncertainty around the Brexit process is weighing on economic growth prospects, in our view,” Fitch said, adding that the UK’s GDP growth could fall to 1.3 percent from last year’s 1.7 percent.
Meanwhile, S&P Global Ratings maintained its “AA” rating for UK sovereign debt, along with a negative outlook.
“The ratings are constrained by the uncertainty regarding the UK’s exit from and future relationship with the EU, which in our opinion will have important implications for its economy, its ability to attract inflows of capital and labor over time, and its public and external finances,” the ratings agency said.
CHIP HANG-UP: Surging memorychip prices would deal a blow to smartphone sales this year, potentially hindering one of MediaTek’s biggest sources of revenue MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip designer, yesterday said its new artificial intelligence (AI) chips used in data centers are to account for 20 percent of its total revenue next year, as cloud service providers race to deploy AI infrastructure to meet voracious demand. MediaTek is believed to be developing tensor processing units for Google, which are used in AI applications. While it did not confirm such reports, MediaTek said its new application-specific IC (ASIC) business would be a new growth engine for the company. It again hiked its forecast for the addressable ASIC market to US$70 billion by 2028, compared
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
RSS