Australia’s central bank cut its key interest rate to the lowest level in almost 50 years yesterday, reinforcing fears the global financial crisis has dragged the country into recession.
The cash rate was lowered by a quarter percentage point to 3 percent and since September has been slashed a total of four and a quarter percentage points.
Economists had been divided about whether the Reserve Bank of Australia’s board would cut the rate again at its monthly meeting.
It left the rate unchanged last month.
The cut comes after the latest official data showed GDP shrank by 0.5 percent in the last quarter of last year and unemployment rose to its highest level in four years in February.
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens said recent information showed that the global recession continued from last year into this year, and most assessments for the short term were gloomy despite huge government spending plans.
“Considerable economic policy stimulus is in train in most countries, the full effects of which are not yet discernible, but which should help contain the downturn over the rest of the year,” he said in a statement.
“There are tentative signs of stabilization in several countries, including China, though it is too early yet to judge how durable these will prove to be,” he said.
Officials have pegged Australia’s recovery to China, which is the country’s largest trading partner and fueled a mining boom in recent years.
Stevens said plans to reform the banking systems in the US and elsewhere had helped global financial markets recover slowly, but added that “sentiment remains fragile.”
The Australian economy is contracting at a slower rate than its trading partners and inflation is likely to fall as unemployment rises, so the rate cut “will provide significant support to domestic demand over the period ahead,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS