Export orders grew 11 percent to US$27.94 billion last month from US$25.17 billion in May to post the smallest yearly decline of 10.91 percent in the past eight months, according to data released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday.
In the first half of the year, accumulated export orders totaled US$139.96 billion, dropping US$42.48 billion, or 23.28 percent, from the same period last year, the data showed.
GROWTH EXPECTED
“The second half of this year will definitely be better than the first half,” Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實), director of the ministry’s statistics department, said at a media briefing, adding that strong growth in orders was expected next month and in September.
Orders from the country’s two largest export destinations, China and the US, came in at US$7.79 billion and US$6.44 billion respectively last month, registering yearly declines of 10.49 percent and 8.38 percent.
“The yearly decline [in export orders] to China was mostly driven by slowdowns in chemical products,” Huang said.
Orders from the US have returned to the US$6 billion level, “which is a significant development,” he added.
The ministry’s figures show annual growth of 2.93 percent to US$3.19 billion in orders from Japan, while orders from APEC countries grew 1.21 percent to US$2.67 billion.
“The only destination that is still suffering from the global recession seems to be Europe, where the year-on-year decline was 17.68 percent to US$4.46 billion in June,” Huang said.
Among the major export categories, orders for information and communications products increased 2.87 percent year-on-year to US$6.77 billion last month, the first positive growth rate since November last year. Precision product orders grew 1.58 percent from last year to US$2.57 billion, while electronics products fell 6.12 percent year-on-year to US$6.66 billion.
Tony Phoo (符銘財), Standard Chartered Bank’s chief economist in Taipei, did not share Huang’s optimism.
ROSIER
Phoo attributed last month’s rosier performance to orders received from the Computex trade show.
While the Computex orders were at the same level as last year, the figure for last month would have looked dismal if there had been no trade show orders, Phoo said.
“Moreover, purchasing teams from China really helped the Taiwanese panel industry,” he said.
Although export orders for last month were better than expected and this month’s orders are expected to continue showing positive month-on-month growth and smaller year-on-year declines, Phoo said that he was not sure whether Taiwan’s export-reliant economy was any closer to a full recovery.
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
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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