The economy has shown signs of a slowdown, after eight consecutive months of "green light" figures for healthy growth came to an end, the government's economic policymaking body said yesterday.
The total score of monitoring indicators for last month came in at 22 points, down from 23 points in the preceding month, and signaled a "yellow-blue light," which indicates a slowdown in the economy, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said.
Last month's showing ended eight consecutive months of "green light," which signals steady growth, since August last year, the council said.
The leading index -- comprising seven indicators including stock markets, wholesale prices, monetary supply, export orders and construction licenses -- are designed to measure Taiwan's economic activity three months ahead.
The council uses a five-level spectrum to gauge domestic economic health, with "blue" indicating recession, "yellow-blue" a slowdown, "green" steady growth, "yellow-red" a slight overheating and "red" an absolute overheating.
But the index of leading indicators for last month stood at 108.7 points, up 1 percent from March, when it registered a revised 1.9 percent month-on-month fall, it said.
The original March reading for the index of leading indicators, which is used as a gauge for the economy's direction in the coming months, was a 2.3 percent month-on-month decline.
Last month's index of coincident indicators, which coincides with the current pace of economic activity, rose 0.8 percent month-on-month to 113.5 points, after it posted a 1.1 percent drop or a revised 1.4 percent fall in March, the council said.
Hung Jui-bin (洪瑞彬), director-general of the economic research department at the council, attributed the changes in monitoring indicators to the negative impact of customs-cleared exports.
Customs-cleared exports posted a smaller year-on-year increase last month compared with that in March.
"All other indicators moved in an uptrend but the seasonally adjusted exports [year-on-year] growth narrowed, cutting the score by one and brought the flash to yellow-blue light," Hung said.
"We will see whether this [yellow-blue light] is just an independent scenario," he said.
Separately, a survey of manufacturers last month showed that 18 percent of respondents expect the economy to improve over the next three months, unchanged from a month earlier.
Some 14 percent of respondents held a negative view, up from 9 percent in the preceding month.
The council said that 68 percent of manufacturers expect the economy to maintain its current direction, down from 73 percent in March.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts