Export orders set an all-time record again last month of NT$35.98 billion (US$1.1 billion), up 16.7 percent from a year earlier.
“Taiwan continued to benefit from the rising yen, as companies switched their purchasing orders to Taiwan for lower-priced products,” Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實), director of Ministry of Economic Affairs’ (MOEA) statistics department, told a press briefing.
The yen has gained 12.7 percent against the US dollar so far this year, while the NT dollar has risen 3.5 percent, he said.
Another factor fueling record orders was China’s Golden Week Holiday, as companies stocked up on high-tech gadgets one to two months ahead of the holiday in anticipation of a buying spree, he said.
Export orders are an indication of Taiwan’s product and components shipments overseas over the next one to three months.
In terms of product breakdown, international orders for electronic components, which include semiconductors and memory chips, rose 15.8 percent to a record US$8.9 billion last month.
Orders for information and communications products — handsets and notebooks — grew 22.2 percent to US$9.4 billion last month from a year ago.
Orders for precision machinery, including panels, gained 1 percent to US$3.1 billion.
The biggest buyer was China, which placed orders worth US$9.2 billion last month, a year-on-year growth of 11.4 percent, while the second-largest market was the US, which placed US$7.7 billion worth of orders, an increase of 16.7 percent.
Orders from Europe — the third-largest market — rose 22.1 percent to US$6.97 billion.
The statistics department said cumulative export orders for January to last month totaled US$298.8 billion, a jump of 31.2 percent.
It raised Taiwan’s orders forecast for the whole year to more than US$410 billion, from the earlier forecast of US$400 billion.
Huang attributed the record number for the year on the rebound of the global economy from last year’s financial crisis, as well as strong momentum from Chinese buyers.
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