The worst of the financial sector crisis is over although the impact on the broader economy will likely drag on in coming months, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said yesterday.
“There are good reasons to believe that the largest part of disclosure in financial institutions has been done, especially in the United States ... so that the worst news is behind us,” he told a panel at the European Parliament.
“The main problem is the linkages between the financial crisis and the real economy and this is not behind us,” he added, estimating the impact of the financial turmoil to weigh on economic activity for another “several quarters.”
Economic growth has lost pace in most major economies recently in the wake of a slump in the US housing market, which has triggered extreme financial market volatility and reluctance among banks to make all but the safest loans.
After months of nerve-wracking swings in financial markets, optimism has begun to emerge among market participants that the worst of the storm has blown over since the collapse of the US investment bank Bear Stearns in the middle of March.
While past financial crises tended to be triggered by problems in developing countries, often with current account problems, Strauss-Kahn warned that in the long term the recent turmoil would likely be “a taste of the new kind of crisis that we are going to face.”
With big developed economies such as the US and Europe slowing following the turmoil, Strauss-Kahn said that emerging countries would be the biggest motors behind world economic growth this year.
Nevertheless, he insisted that such fast-growing economies would also eventually feel the impact of the slowdown in rich countries, although perhaps with “some delay.”
“In no way is there some sort decoupling” between economic growth trends in developed countries and emerging economies, he said, weighing into one of the hottest debates currently in economics.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
RSS