The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER,
"We are very bullish about the upcoming economic recovery, although its strength is still building," TIER president Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) told reporters yesterday morning.
Global economic recovery and economic stimulus policies introduced by the Democratic Progressive Party administration have boosted the local economy, Wu added.
But the legislature's failure to pass the Cabinet's five-year, NT$500 billion (US$14.8 billion) public construction program will be an obstacle to the government's pursuit of the goal of having 5 percent GDP growth this year, according to Wu.
If the legislature approves the plan in the second quarter to allow the Cabinet to kick-start the program in the latter half of the year, this year's GDP may climb as high as 5.27 percent, Wu predicts.
Although the nation's unemployment rate slightly improved to 4.99 percent last year, the institute was not so upbeat about further improvements, saying that a "jobless recovery" is inevitable.
"The nation's jobless rate is unlikely to go below 4 or 4.5 percent as a result of depressed labor-oriented traditional industries," Wu said.
The think tank yesterday also released a survey of the nation's business climate index (BCI) last month, which showed an increase of 1.73 point to 117.75 points from November's 116.02, indicating that business executives remained very optimistic about the nation's business prospect.
Its latest poll showed that over 87 percent of respondent companies continued to hold bullish views about economic outlook last month. Among them, 55.3 percent were very optimistic.
Some 12.6 percent of Taiwanese companies expressed gloomy views about the nation's economic outlook in December -- a fall from November's 13.3 percent.
As for the economic outlook for the next six months, the poll found that 87 percent of Taiwanese companies remain confident about an upcoming recovery.
Twelve percent of polled executives, however, were less optimistic -- up from November's 6 percent.
"Uncertainty about a strengthening New Taiwan dollar and a price-hike in raw materials worries them," Wu explained.
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