Monitoring indicators fell to 31 points last month, changing the overall signal to “green,” and providing more evidence that the nation’s economic expansion is slowing down, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.
The total score of overall monitoring indicators fell by 3 points from February, giving the first “green” signal since October 2009, the council’s report showed.
The green signal reflects the range of overall monitoring indicators scoring between 23 and 31 points, while yellow-red signals a standing between 32 and 37.
The falling scores of overall monitoring indicators last month brought an end to the yellow-red signal that had reigned for six straight months, the report said.
“The poorer performance in the stock market and lower exports valued in New Taiwan dollars led to falling monitoring indicators last month,” Hung Jui-bin (洪瑞彬), director-general of the council’s economic research department, told a media briefing.
Among the nine components, the stock price signal fell from yellow-red to green last month, while customs-cleared exports went from red to green, driving down the total score of monitoring indicators, Hung said.
The leading indicator index also rose at a slower pace last month, another indication that growth in the economy is slowing, Hung said.
The composite leading indicator index, which is used to gauge the economic outlook for the following six-month period, stood at 126.9 points last month, up from 126.7 points in February, the council’s statistics showed.
However, the index’s annualized six-month rate of change, which provides a more accurate forecast of business cycles, slid by 0.2 percentage points to 3 percent from a month earlier, indicating 16 months of consecutive decline.
“Although the expansion of the nation’s economy is slowing down, Taiwan’s economy is still growing steadily,” Hung said.
However, the latest leading indicator indices of the G7 countries and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development both rebounded for a seventh straight month, showing that economic momentum in the US and European countries has remained strong, potentially beneficial to Taiwan’s exports in the near future, Hung said.
In a separate survey conducted by National Central University, consumer confidence rebounded last month as the public became more optimistic over stock investments and job opportunities.
The consumer confidence index (CCI) rose by 2.13 points from February to 85.78 last month, ending a decrease for the second consecutive month, the university’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development said in a report.
The CCI benchmark gauges public expectations concerning stock performances, household finances, durable goods, job opportunities, consumer prices and the economic outlook for the next six months, data showed.
“People felt optimistic about the job market, making this sub-index hit 100.45 points, the strongest ever,” center director Hsu Chih-chiang (徐之強) told a media briefing.
The sub-index of stock performances also increased 4.5 points to 90.1 last month, the most of all the sub-indices, while the sub-index of durable goods fell by 0.7 points to 100.65, the only decrease.
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