The nation posted a balance of payments surplus of US$15.38 billion in the second quarter as strong exports and net fund inflows boosted reserves, the central bank said yesterday.
The balance of payments — including the current account, financial account and capital account — summarizes a net amount of money paid or received by a country during a certain period.
The second-quarter balance of payments surplus increased 14.8 percent from US$13.4 billion in the first quarter and was up 30.12 percent from US$11.82 billion a year earlier, which indicated that the central bank still enjoyed an increase in foreign exchange reserves, National Central University economics professor Hsu Chih-chiang (徐之強) said yesterday.
“A rising foreign exchange reserves could create appreciation pressure on the NT dollar,” Hsu said.
Improving trade activities drove the current account surplus to US$10.56 billion in the second quarter, up from a revised US$10.29 billion surplus last year, the central bank said, linking the increase to recovering global demand for Taiwan-made consumer electronics.
On Thursday, the government said exports surged 46.24 percent to US$70.13 billion in the April to June period from a year ago, contributing a trade surplus of US$7.03 billion.
In the financial account, the nation saw a net inflow of US$5.91 billion in the second quarter, widening from a US$2.7 billion net inflow during the first quarter and higher than the revised US$3.04 billion a year ago, the central bank’s statistics showed.
Chen E-dawn (陳一端), deputy chief of the central bank’s economic research department, said increased net inflow in the financial account was because the banking sector lowered foreign interbank lending and took back capital from overseas branches.
“Domestic banks did so in order to meet the need for corporate loans by major technology firms to expand their manufacturing capacity,” Chen said.
The banking sector’s moves more than offset outflows of funds by Taiwanese to buy foreign securities, Chen said.
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