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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last