Taiwan's economy grew at a slower-than-expected rate in the first quarter as lackluster private consumption offset robust exports, a government official said yesterday.
The slight correction would not hinder further economic growth during the rest of the year. Robust exports in the first quarter led the government to raise its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for the full year to 4.31 percent from the 4.25 percent predicted previously.
"Growth momentum looks quite good for the year as the global economy is moving up which includes Taiwan's major trade partners, the US and China," Hsu Jan-yau (許璋瑤), minister of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), told a press conference.
"All the key indicators are moving up except for private consumption," he said.
Nationally, GDP was 4.93 percent during the first quarter, lower than the 5.06 percent estimated in February by the government's statistical agency.
The first-quarter figure of 4.93 percent growth also compares to a 6.4-percent expansion registered during the final quarter of last year, the fastest pace for six quarters, according to DGBAS figures.
"Private consumption is much more sluggish than we expected, primarily because of a sharp drop in automobile sales," Hsu said.
According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, sales of new cars in Taiwan dropped by nearly 25 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year ago.
Private consumption, which makes up about two-thirds of Taiwan's total GDP figure, only increased by 2.07 percent instead of the 2.97 percent projected by the government.
But, the exports of goods and services grew at a faster-than-expected annual rate at 14.1 percent during the first three months, compared to the earlier estimates of 12.1 percent, Hsu said without giving detailed figures.
Manufacturing production, the biggest component of industrial output, also increased rapidly, rising 8.21 percent from a year ago, he said.
But, rocketing crude oil prices and high levels of credit and cash-card debt, which were partly blamed for sluggish personal consumption during the first three months, were concerns, Hsu said.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), an economist at Citigroup, said he was inclined to keep his forecast unchanged.
"We haven't seen sufficient evidence to lift the forecast," Cheng said.
Cheng predicted that Taiwan's economy would expand by 3.9 percent this year from last year.
"Inflation is the only uncertainty and can erode economic growth," Cheng said.
The government predicted the consumer price index, a tool used to gauge an economy's inflation, would rise moderately by 1.8 percent this year after increasing by 1.35 percent in the January-March period from the same period last year.
Hsu said growth in the CPI would only take away about 0.1 percentage point from the nation's GDP this year as the hikes in energy and electricity prices did not reflect sky-high global oil prices.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS