Exports last month reached their second-highest level since the global financial crisis, with shipments of electronics and machinery hitting record highs on increasing global demand, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Exports last month rose US$5.05 billion from a year ago to US$24.05 billion, up 26.6 percent year-on-year, compared with a gain of US$6.64 billion, or 38.5 percent year-on-year, in July. Ministry officials said it was the tenth consecutive month of double-digit export growth.
“Electronics shipments were US$6.87 billion last month, the most ever. Increasing demand also pushed sales of machinery to a record high of US$1.57 billion,” Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department, told a media briefing.
Of the export gains, shipments of electronic products saw the largest increase at US$1.36 billion, followed by sales of machinery at US$640 million and exports of base metals at US$520 million.
Exports to the US hit their highest level since late 2008 at US$2.93 billion, mostly helped by stellar shipments of information and communication products, the ministry said. Shipments to China, including Hong Kong, were US$9.79 billion, up 18.1 percent year-on-year, accounting for the largest portion of the nation’s foreign trade, 40.7 percent, followed by the ASEAN region at 14.8 percent and the US at 12.2 percent. Standard Chartered chief economist Tony Phoo (符銘財) said that the marginal pickup of exports to China indicated that overseas sales to the world’s largest developing economy appeared to have been impacted by concern over the US and European outlook.
Meanwhile, as domestic investment and consumption continued to increase, imports reached US$21.79 billion, up US$4.76 billion, or 28 percent, year-on-year, the third-highest amount since the financial crisis, the ministry said. Imports of capital equipment were US$3.78 billion, a US$1.48 billion or 64.3 percent increase from a year earlier. It was the sixth consecutive month in which they exceeded US$3 billion.
On a monthly basis, exports rose US$150 million or 0.6 percent while imports grew US$50 million, or 0.2 percent. Shipments to China, including Hong Kong, the US, Europe and Japan all reported month-on-month growth.
Exports to ASEAN countries, however, declined US$350 million, or 9 percent because of reduced sales of oil products to Singapore and Indonesia after major fires at Formosa Plastics, the ministry said.
Nonetheless, the decline in imports of raw materials, which fell 2.3 percent, indicated that “firms are turning to managing inventory until they get clearer picture or visibility into year-end sales demand,” Phoo said.
In the first eight months, exports to China, including Hong Kong, and Japan hit record highs of US$76.26 billion and US$11.82 billion, respectively, while imports of capital equipment reached a record high of US$26.05 billion, up US$11.04 billion or 73.6 percent, compared with the same period last year.
Looking ahead, ministry officials remained conservative on whether exports will exceed the record high of US$25.47 billion set in May in the following four months, saying that the fourth-quarter performance will not be as good as in the third quarter.
“Exports performed very well in the first half of the year, so it is less likely that the second half will make a breakthrough,” Lin said.
However, she expected exports for the full year to reach US$272.9 billion, the highest amount ever.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”