The nation's consumer confidence dipped this month to the lowest level in 10 months amid growing concerns over the cross-strait relationship and a pessimistic sentiment toward the stock market, a consumer research institute at National Central University said yesterday.
"The consumer confidence index was mainly driven down by people's worries about stock investments in the next six months," Chu Yun-peng (
In the survey conducted between May 19 and May 22, consumer confidence in buying stocks reached its lowest level since November 2001, with 62.7 percent of the respondents saying they would stay away from the stock market in the near term, up from 51.7 percent last month, Chu said.
Rising commodity prices remained another concern, the survey showed, as 68.3 percent of the respondents were worried that prices would continue to climb in the next six months, compared with 66.1 percent shown in last month's survey.
Although the unemployment rate dropped to 4.36 percent last month -- to its lowest level since June 2001 -- public confidence in job prospects dropped slightly this month.
Day Jaw-yang (
Day said the government's short-term job-creation scheme is not a long-term solution.
"That solution is like morphine -- meaningless," he said.
While the respondents also showed weaker confidence in their household finances for the near future, they said the domestic economic outlook is picking up and there are good opportunities to purchase durable goods in the latter half of the year, Chu said.
The poll also surveyed public expectations about the real estate market. Chu said the nation's economic development was cited by 24.5 percent of the respondents as the most important factor affecting the property market.
Other factors that were also key to purchasing property included Taiwan's relations with China (21.6 percent) and stock performances (18 percent), he said.
A local property developer, however, said stock fluctuations always outweigh cross-strait relations and economic prospects in determining performances in the real-estate sector.
"As long as the TAIEX rises for five consecutive days, the number of housing units sold will rise," said Timothy Ma (馬玉山), chairman of Kingdom Construction Corp (冠德).
Within the next 12 months, 38.8 percent of people said good opportunities have come for buying houses, compared with 26.5 percent who upheld the negative.
Liang Kuo-yuan (梁國源), president of Polaris Research Institute (寶華綜合經濟研究院), believes this indicates that the public remains confident in the nation's economy despite short-term uncertainties.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by