The government is likely to make an upward revision on Thursday to its second-quarter GDP outlooks and major economic data for the rest of the year on improving external demand a limited impact by Typhoon Morakot on the local economy, analysts said yesterday.
The Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday quoted President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as saying that the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) may revise its GDP forecast upward for the year and has assured him that the local economy would expand by 3.8 percent next year.
During the interview, Ma said that the typhoon’s impact on the local economy would be limited.
He said that increased government spending and private investment after the typhoon would be reflected in economic figures from the fourth quarter, the report showed.
A DGBAS official yesterday confirmed that the local economy would probably expand by more than 3 percent next year, lower than most market forecasts, after shrinking by the steepest level on record this year.
“It’s safe to say that GDP growth is going to be more than 3 percent next year. That’s what most research houses are forecasting as well,” the official said.
He declined to be identified or provide a specific figure.
A Reuters poll in July, however, yielded a median projection of 4 percent for next year’s growth.
Yesterday, Singapore’s DBS said it expected Taiwan’s GDP of about US$390 billion to expand 4.3 percent next year, while Standard Chartered’s forecast was for 3.1 percent growth.
As for the second-quarter GDP, the DGBAS predicted in May that the economy would contract 8.5 percent between April and June from a year earlier after the recession deepened in the first three months.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), head economist at Citigroup Taiwan Inc, put the decline at 7.8 percent last quarter, owing to better-than-expected exports and private investment.
Cheng said the statistics agency would probably raise GDP for the year to a decline of 4 percent, from a contraction of 4.25 percent, after the US and China both posted stronger second-quarter GDP data.
“Taiwan will benefit from the economic rebounds of its two biggest trade partners,” Cheng said by telephone.
Tony Phoo (符銘財), chief economist of Standard Chartered Bank, said the economy may have shrunk between 7 percent or 8 percent last quarter as all economic gauges slid amid the global downturn.
Private investment plunged 39 percent in the second quarter despite reports of purchase of capital goods, Phoo 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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day