AUSTRALIA
Bank lifts forecasts
The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday lifted its inflation and wage growth forecasts while predicting that unemployment would remain under 4 percent through the middle of 2024. Headline inflation is expected to reach 7.75 percent by December, the central bank said in its quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy. The headline and core measures are predicted to remain well above the bank’s 2 to 3 percent target over the next year before hitting the top of its band at the end of the forecast period in December 2024. The outlook assumes the cash rate will rise to 3 percent by December from 1.85 percent at present and then “decline a little” by the end of 2024, it said.
INDONESIA
Expansion beats estimates
The economy expanded better than estimates in the second quarter, powered by a commodity-led exports boom and robust spending that could nudge Bank Indonesia to begin its rate liftoff. GDP grew 5.44 percent in the three months to June from a year earlier, Statistics Indonesia said yesterday. That is the fastest increase in four quarters and beats the median estimate of a 5.17 percent gain in a Bloomberg survey. Compared with the previous quarter, GDP expanded 3.72 percent, beating the consensus for a 3.47 percent rise. Southeast Asia’s largest economy is steadily gaining momentum after a broader reopening that spurred mobility and travel especially during the Ramadan and Eid holidays. Growth in private consumption, which makes up more than half of domestic output, quickened to 5.51 percent last quarter from 4.34 percent in the January-March period.
FOOD
FAO index declines
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) world price index declined again last month, edging further away from record highs in March. The index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 140.9 points last month versus a revised 154.3 for June. The June figure was previously put at 154.2. Last month’s index was still 13.1 percent higher than a year earlier, pushed up by the impact of the invasion of Ukraine, adverse weather, and high production and transport costs. A bleak global economic outlook, currency volatility and high fertilizer prices — which can affect future production and farmers’ livelihoods — all pose serious strains for global food security, FAO lead economist Maximo Torero said.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba avoids contraction
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) posted better results than many investors feared, avoiding a sharp sales contraction while signaling an improvement in Chinese consumer sentiment in the past few months. Revenue shrank for the first time on record in the June quarter, albeit by a fractional amount that was less than analysts projected. China’s e-commerce leader reported revenue of 205.6 billion yuan (US$30.4 billion) in the June quarter, enough to beat projections for 204 billion yuan. Net income fell 50 percent to 22.7 billion yuan, even after Alibaba trimmed losses at newer businesses such as local services and the cloud. Alibaba is still grappling with the fallout from nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns and a near-economic contraction in China. Still, consumption began recovering from June and quickened last month, Alibaba chief executive officer Daniel Zhang (張勇) said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last