World Business Quick Take – Taipei Times

UNITED STATES

Chamber warns over India

The Chamber of Commerce on Monday said that the Indian economy — the world’s sixth-largest — could falter as a result of a spike in COVID-19 cases, creating a drag for the global economy. Chamber executive vice president Myron Brilliant said that the risk of spillover effects was high, given that many US companies employ millions of Indian workers to run their back-office operations. “We expect that this could get worse before it gets better,” Brilliant told reporters, citing a “real risk” that the Indian economy would falter. “There’s a big concern about the drag on the economy by a devastating, spreading virus in India.”

SOUTH KOREA

Investments help economy

South Korea led the developed world to join China in exceeding the size of its pre-COVID-19-pandemic economy, as investment and exports helped it expand faster than expected. GDP in the first quarter grew 1.6 percent from the previous quarter, the Bank of Korea said yesterday, easily beating economists’ consensus for a 1.1 percent expansion. That pushed GDP above the level at the end of 2019, before the pandemic. From the previous quarter, facilities investment jumped 6.6 percent, while exports increased 1.9 percent. Government spending was up 1.7 percent and private consumption rebounded 1.1 percent. From a year earlier, overall GDP increased 1.8 percent.

HONG KONG

Bonuses data released

Finance executives got the territory’s biggest bonuses last year, defying the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw more than one-third of respondents say that they missed out on incentive payments, a survey by KPMG showed. Finance workers got annual bonuses equivalent to 2.83 months’ salary last year, while real-estate was second with 2.16 times, KPMG’s annual review of employment trends showed. They were the only sectors to increase their payouts. The value of the average bonus across all sectors in the territory slumped to 1.83 months’ salary last year, compared with 2.23 a year earlier.

CHINA

Industrial firms’ profit soars

Profit at industrial firms soared last month, supported by a booming economy and rising factory gate prices, as well as statistical distortions from last year’s low base of comparison. Industrial profits climbed 92.3 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday, retreating from an increase of 179 percent in the first two months of this year, but still outpacing a 20.1 percent gain in December last year. The bureau said that the steady recovery was partly due to faster production and sales, but warned of a number of risks clouding the outlook.

JAPAN

Growth forecast raised

The Bank of Japan yesterday raised its growth forecasts for the world’s third-largest economy, citing expected stronger demand, and left its ultra-loose monetary policy in place. However, the central bank said that the outlook remains “highly unclear” and could change depending on how the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, and affects the domestic and international economy. Still, it revised up its forecast for the 2020-2021 fiscal year ended on March 31, projecting that the economy would shrink 4.9 percent, compared with a 5.6 percent contraction it predicted in January. For the current fiscal year, it now expects 4 percent growth, compared with its January forecast of 3.9 percent.