Business sentiment among manufactures slumped to the worst level in almost three decades last month and was also bleak in the service sector as economic downside risks heightened, a report showed yesterday.
The report by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院), which surveys different sectors monthly, found that the index of confidence for the manufacturing industry shed another 9.56 points to 78.24 points last month — the lowest since the institute initiated the poll in March 1979.
Just over 67 percent of manufacturers were bearish last month about their business prospects for the coming six months, up from 64.8 percent a month earlier, while firms with a neutral sentiment fell from 30.9 percent to 27.1 percent.
It said 5.8 percent of manufacturers were bullish, compared with 4.3 percent in October.
Chen Miao (陳淼), a TIER researcher who delivered the report, attributed the rise in bearish sentiment to deteriorating exports and domestic consumption.
Outbound shipments contracted 23.3 percent last month to US$167.8 billion.
“The gloom is unlikely to lighten in the near future, as the global economic downturn is expected to deepen and pose tougher challenges for the nation’s manufacturers and service providers in the months ahead,” Chen said.
Sentiment in the service sector was also bleak, with the confidence index dropping 4.87 points to 89.56 points last month, down from 94.43 points in October.
Chen said the survey showed that anticipation of consumer vouchers to be issued next month had yet to lift confidence in the service sector. The government will release the vouchers — worth NT$3,600 per eligible person — on Jan. 18, with the aim of raising next year’s GDP growth by at least 0.64 percentage points.
“The voucher plan is apparently not strong enough to offset the impact of recession on consumer spending,” Chen said.
The economist said he expected confidence to weaken further. Economic research institutes around the world have lowered GDP forecasts for many nations, including Taiwan, Chen said.
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
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
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],”
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