Despite the global economic recovery and improving exports, the manufacturing sector remained cautious about the economy last month because of fluctuations in raw material price levels and the approaching end of its peak season, a survey said yesterday.
The survey, conducted by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院), showed that respondents viewing the business climate as bullish last month fell 17.3 percent from a month earlier, while those with a pessimistic outlook rose 6.7 percent.
“Now [the manufacturing sector] is going into its slow season, and last month the New Taiwan dollar depreciated and raw material prices were rising,” Chen Miao (陳淼), director of the macroeconomic forecasting division at the TIER, told a media briefing yesterday.
Although businesses received abundant export orders, their profits were weighed down, Chen said, adding that as raw material prices continued to fluctuate, businesses were not upbeat about the economic outlook.
The business climate gauge for the manufacturing sector last month stood at 116.45 points, up 1.14 points from a revised 117.59 points in October, the survey said.
On outlook for the next six months, 22.7 percent of respondents were pessimistic, up from 16.4 percent in October, while 33.7 percent remained optimistic, down from 21.4 percent the previous month.
However, it is a different story for the service industry. A separate survey by the Taipei-based research institute indicated yesterday that the food and beverage sectors recorded a better performance last month than in October.
“Domestic consumption is usually the strongest in the first quarter of the year. Toward the end of the year, food and beverage businesses and the wholesale and retail sectors are entering their peak seasons,” Chen 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