Taiwan's export orders and industrial production grew at their slowest pace in four months in October, signaling that faltering US demand may slow the export rebound in the nation.
Export order growth slowed to 12.31 percent last month from 22 percent in September, according to year-on-year figures from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This is the seventh consecutive month for export orders to achieve a two-digit growth.
The orders indicate shipments a month later, suggesting exports, which posted their slowest gain in six months in October, may continue to decelerate.
``External demand is not performing very well,'' said Cici Leung, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co in Hong Kong.
``China will lend some support, but I don't think it's going to more than offset the other 70 percent.'' Leung estimates that China, Taiwan's largest market, absorbs about 30 percent of exports.
Factory-production growth slowed to 7.4 percent from 12.5 percent, the report showed.
The ministry attributed the growth in export orders last month to increasing demand for information technology products. A delay in orders due to closure of ports on the US west coast early in the month also pushed up the October figures, it said.
Chang Yaw-tzong (
``Robust'' demand from China, where the economy expanded 8.1 percent in the third quarter, helped drive better-than-expected export order growth, Chang said.
Seasonal peak demand from China before the Chinese New Year in February helped to extend the traditional year-end increase in demand ahead of the Christmas holidays in the US and Europe.
Taiwan companies' export orders from Hong Kong rose 25.97 percent in October from a year earlier. Most shipments to China from Taiwan go through Hong Kong because of trade restrictions between Taiwan and the mainland.
Orders from the US rose 5.68 percent last month, compared with a 4.9 percent increase from Europe and 20.3 percent gain from Japan.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day