With shoppers making more purchases than originally expected ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, some retailers are now anticipating gains of between 10 percent to 50 percent in their sales over the same time last year.
"Over the weekend, our sales nearly tripled compared to most weekends]," said Lilian Lee (李莉莉), public relations manager at Carrefour Taiwan. "Our stores were packed with people buying food, gift sets and electronics products."
Compared to the same time last year, Carrefour's sales may jump by about 50 percent, Lee said.
"Low prices still talk ... to lure customers we axed gift-set prices by up to 20 percent," she said.
Lunar New Year sales are expected to rise 10 percent over last year at RT-Mart (
"Consumers are still cautious in their spending," said Wu Chung-shu (吳中書), a research fellow at the Institute of Economics at Academia Sinica. "But they are slowly and steadily stepping out of the economic gloom and becoming more confident [about the economy]."
Another retailer also said that the buying mood is high when prices are attractive.
"To stimulate sales, we cut wine-gift-set prices by 5 percent on the average," said Brian Chien (
Maxxium Taiwan expects a 30 percent rise this year in holiday sales year-on-year, Chien said.
Taiwan is experiencing a growth rate of 3.38 percent so far this year, compared with 3.27 percent growth last year, according to figures from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics. The GDP contracted 2.18 percent in 2001.
"Most people believe that the most difficult time has passed and the outlook for this year is positive," said Wei Duan (韋端), head of the Taiwan Research Institute.
Consumers believe the nation is pulling out of a recession that began two years ago and their confidence toward the economy showed a major improvement in January, he said.
Consumer confidence is rising, given the government's plan to invest NT$70 billion to create 115,000 part-time jobs and the stock market's gradual rebound from 3,000 to around 5,000, Wei said.
But Wu said the recovery in the economy may only apply to some regions.
"Major cities in the northern part of Taiwan may already start to rebound, while consumer spending in central and southern Taiwan may remain sluggish," Wu said.
The outlook for the entire year is becoming more positive.
"We believe the economy will be at the same level or a little bit better than last year," Wu said.
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