Taiwan’s export decline in the first seven months of the year was the largest among the four Asian dragons, a government agency said yesterday.
However, conditions were expected to improve by the fourth quarter, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said in a statement.
In comparing the sagging exports among Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, the situation in Taiwan was the worst with a fall of 32.8 percent between January and July, the agency said.
Export decline in Hong Kong in this period stood at just 17.2 percent, followed by South Korea’s 22.5 percent and Singapore’s 31 percent.
The decline in exports from China also slipped by 22 percent in the first seven months, while that of the US dropped by 24 percent, the agency said.
DGBAS said Taiwan’s failure to establish its own brand name products in the electronics and communications sectors was the major reason for its higher decline level.
The agency said when countries such as the US and South Korea, which produce their own brand name products, face a sharp reduction in demand, they first deal with their production capacity problem at home instead of placing orders in Taiwan or elsewhere.
But with the gradual recovery in the global economy, Taiwan was expected to see positive growth at an estimated 13.1 percent of its exports by the fourth quarter, it said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS