Export orders reach record high, says economics ministry

Export orders last month rose to a record high of US$30.92 billion compared with US$30.49 billion in August, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.

Last month's figure represents a 16.10 percent increase from the same month a year earlier, compared with a 16.32 percent year-on-year rise in the preceding month, the ministry said.

In the first nine months of the year, Taiwan took in export orders worth US$250.70 billion, up 14.78 percent from a year ago.

The ministry said September export orders from the US amounted to US$7.56 billion, up 3.83 percent year-on-year. Orders from China and Hong Kong combined rose 20.27 percent to US$8.46 billion, while orders from Japan increased 13.46 percent to US$2.93 billion.

Orders from Europe amounted to US$5.74 billion, up 28.63 percent from a year earlier, it added.

Juliana Lee, economist at the Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong said the year-on-year export order growth rate last month was above its forecasted rate of 14.2 percent.

But "Going forward, we expect export growth to weaken further, due to possible slowdown in G2 [US and EU] economies," the bank said in a statement yesterday.

Industrial production (IP), meanwhile, was down 4.44 percent last month from August but up 8.13 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.

For the first nine months of the year, the IP index rose 5.87 percent to 146.32.

Deutsche Bank forecast a 3.5-percent growth in IP this year, down from a 5.2 percent increase last year, due to a slowdown in external growth.

additional reporting by Kevin Chen