The world economy is likely to shrink this year despite growth in Asian powerhouses China and India, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) head Angel Gurria said yesterday, warning of a first global contraction in 60 years.
“Now we are probably seeing a world which will go negative because even the positive growth of India and China is not going to be enough to offset the negative growth in [developed countries],” he told reporters.
He was replying to a question about his expectations for growth this year.
Gurria’s remark came after the IMF said it also believed the global economy could contract this year.
“The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes,” IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Tanzania earlier this month.
Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD, also said in yesterday’s briefing that Chinese economic growth this year was likely to reach 6 percent to 7 percent.
In November, the estimate was 8 percent. The revised forecast will be issued on March 31, Gurria said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday.
“We do see growth in China of between 6 percent and 7 percent and the stimulus package is a very important element,” he said, referring to Chinese government’s 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus plan announced late last year.
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) yesterday released the first video documenting the submerged sea trials of Taiwan’s indigenous defense submarine prototype, the Hai Kun (海鯤), or Narwhal, showing underwater navigation and the launch of countermeasures. The footage shows the vessel’s first dive, steering and control system tests, and the raising and lowering of the periscope and antenna masts. It offered a rare look at the progress in the submarine’s sea acceptance tests. The Hai Kun carried out its first shallow-water diving trial late last month and has since completed four submerged tests, CSBC said. The newly released video compiles images recorded from Jan. 29 to
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Taiwanese trade negotiators told Washington that Taipei would not relocate 40 percent of its semiconductor production to the US, and that its most advanced technologies would remain in the nation, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said on Sunday. “I told the US side very clearly — that’s impossible,” Cheng, who led the negotiation team, said in an interview that aired on Sunday night on Chinese Television System. Cheng was referring to remarks last month by US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, in which he said his goal was to bring 40 percent of Taiwan’s chip supply chain to the US Taiwan’s almost
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