The nation’s export orders hit a historical single month low last month, dropping 33 percent or US$10.24 billion to reach US$20.79 billion, figures released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) showed yesterday.
Looking at major product categories, precision instruments showed the sharpest year-on-year drop in export orders of 53.83 percent last month, followed by digital products at 30.84 percent, and telecommunications products at 23.13 percent, to reach US$1.24 billion, US$4.93 billion and US$5.08 billion, respectively.
Meanwhile, export orders to the country’s major partners declined by double digits across the board last month, compared to the same month in 2007.
Orders to China showed a historical new monthly decrease of 47.13 percent to reach US$4.36 billion. At the same time, orders to the US, Europe and Japan retracted by 24.73 percent, 27.69 percent and 27.20 percent to arrive at US$5.66 billion, US$4.04 billion and US$2.26 billion, respectively.
Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實), director of the ministry’s statistics department, said a slowdown in Taiwan’s export orders to China and Japan last month was expected, given the recent trade numbers released in these two countries.
For the full year last year, export orders edged up 1.71 percent from 2007, showing the lowest growth since 2001.
Huang forecast export orders at a meager US$20 billion for this month, citing the shortened work month, a slowdown in the economies of major export partners and local company sentiment as the three major reasons behind his estimate.
“In a recent poll with our major manufacturers, only 9.4 percent of the respondents believed export orders would grow in January, while more than 60 percent of them expected further declines,” Huang said.
Huang said he foresaw the local economy hitting bottom in the first quarter or second quarter of this year, while signs of recovery may possibly start to emerge sometime in the third quarter, which is similar to the view recently expressed by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Huang said.
The ministry yesterday also released last month’s industrial production data, which dropped by 32.35 percent from a year earlier and posted a record decline based on the government’s statistics.
Last year, from January to last month, the accumulated output decreased by 1.95 percent from that of 2007, setting a new low since 2001, the ministry’s data showed.
Huang said the slowdowns in the manufacturing and mineral and mining sectors were the major contributors to the deterioration in industrial output for last year.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Nintendo Co hopes to match the runaway success of the Switch when its leveled-up new console hits shelves on Thursday, with strong early sales expected despite the gadget’s high price. Featuring a bigger screen and more processing power, the Switch 2 is an upgrade to its predecessor, which has sold 152 million units since launching in 2017 — making it the third-best-selling video game console of all time. However, despite buzz among fans and robust demand for pre-orders, headwinds for Nintendo include uncertainty over US trade tariffs and whether enough people are willing to shell out. The Switch 2 “is priced relatively high”
RSS