Manufacturers turned slightly positive about the economy last month due to the peak export season, but most of them thought the economy will remain at its current level over the next six months, according to a poll released by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院) yesterday.
Export orders rose 22 percent last month from a year earlier to US$23.78 billion, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Monday.
The increasing exports pushed TIER's manufacturing climate index to 112.10 points last month, up by 1.11 points from the previous month, the report said.
For the next half year, 57.7 percent of respondents said they expect the economy to stay at its current level, up from 50.2 percent from the previous poll.
Manufacturers who think the economy will improve fell from 38.7 percent to 31.3 percent, while those who were pessimistic about the economic outlook declined slightly, from 11.1 percent to 11 percent.
The index, which measures the climate of the service sector that accounts for about 70 percent of GDP, however, declined by 2.37 points to 116.09 last month, which is attributed to rising consumer prices, the report said
Higher prices may result in inflation and force the central bank to raise interest rates again, according to TIER.
The central bank has lifted its benchmark interest rates five times since Oct. 1 of last year.
When the bank raised its rediscount rates by 125 basis points to 2.125 percent on Sept. 15, it said that inflation may exceed the government's 2 percent forecast for this year in the wake of heavy amounts of typhoon damage and higher oil prices.
As for the value of the New Taiwan dollar, the institute said the currency is relatively stable compared to other major Asian currencies and should remain stable in the short term.
The NT dollar has been under pressure to depreciate this year, as Taiwan's trade surplus has shrunk significantly, and the US dollar has strengthened, according to the report. It has also been hurt by the continued capital outflows and the stock market's weak performance.
For the first nine months of the year, Taiwan posted a trade surplus of US$1.94 billion, a 69.5 percent drop from the same period last year, according to government statistics.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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