JAPAN
Retail sales maintain growth
The country’s retail sales marked an eighth successive month of annual growth last month, data showed yesterday. However, there was little growth from September, as households were squeezed by inflation running at its fastest pace in 40 years. Retail sales were 4.3 percent higher than a year earlier, government data showed. The rise was lower than economists’ median forecast of 5 percent. On a seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales gained 0.2 percent from a month earlier. It marked the fourth month of increase, but was much smaller than a 1.5 percent rise in September.
RATINGS
S&P cuts forecast
S&P Global Ratings yesterday lowered its growth forecast for emerging economies for next year, citing persistent pressures from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a lingering COVID-19 pandemic and tight monetary policy conditions. The ratings agency projected real GDP growth of 3.8 percent next year, down from its previous forecast of a 4.1 percent expansion. Its forecasts for 2024 and 2025 remain broadly unchanged, averaging at 4.3 percent. The inflation in emerging markets is still poised to remain above central banks’ targets in many economies, forcing monetary policies to stay restrictive, the agency said.
EUROZONE
Inflation yet to peak: Lagarde
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Monday said that she does not believe inflation has peaked after reaching the highest levels on record. There is too much uncertainty to know whether inflation, which hit 10.6 percent last month, would come down soon in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, Lagarde told the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Following its third major rate hike last month, the bank expects “to raise rates further to the levels needed to ensure that inflation returns to our 2 percent medium-term target in a timely manner,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Biden warns over rail strike
President Joe Biden on Monday called on Congress to intervene urgently to prevent a strike by railroad workers that he said would “devastate our economy.” Biden asked Congress to deploy rarely used legislative powers to force adoption of a preliminary deal that freight rail companies and workers had struck in September before some of the trade unions backed off, returning to their threat to go on strike. If an agreement is not reached by Friday next week, the world’s largest economy could see nearly 7,000 freight trains grind to a halt, at a cost of more than US$2 billion a day, according to the American Association of Railroads.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota production down
Toyota Motor Corp produced 771,382 vehicles last month, down from a record of 887,733 the previous month, and warned of an uncertain outlook due to COVID-19 and semiconductor shortages. Output was up 23 percent from a year earlier, when supply chains were disrupted by the spread of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia, Toyota said yesterday. Toyota’s global sales also rose 23 percent from a year earlier, reaching a total of 832,373 vehicles. Including subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd, output and sales totaled 924,132 and 918,756 vehicles respectively, Toyota said.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
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