Domestic demand, not trade with China, contributed most to Taiwan’s economic growth momentum last year, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) said yesterday.
“Roughly 80 percent of our 10.88 percent GDP growth registered in 2010 was driven by domestic consumption,” Lin said.
The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Taipei’s observation that nearly half of Taiwan’s GDP growth last year came from trade with China was a misunderstanding, Lin said.
AmCham chairman Bill Wiseman said at a news briefing on Wednesday that Taiwan has become too reliant on China, which he said drove 47 percent of the country’s economic growth last year — far higher than the 25 percent average in G20 nations.
Lin said the government’s own statistics counter this claim. Domestic consumption accounted for 8.48 percentage points of Taiwan’s 10.88 percent GDP growth last year, while net external demand — or exports minus imports — made up only 2.4 percentage points of the growth rate.
“The figures indicate that our 2010 growth was mainly driven to increases in private consumption and private investment,” Lin said, adding that the ratio of exports contributing to Taiwan’s GDP growth last year was actually lower than those posted in previous years.
However, he said the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement has continued to help expand Taiwan’s exports.
For instance, shipments to China and Hong Kong accounted for 41.8 percent of Taiwan’s overall exports last year, but the share dropped to 40.9 percent in the first four months of this year, indicating that the agreement has not made Taiwan over-reliant on the Chinese market, the minister said.
Moreover, he said, Taiwan’s trade with the EU and ASEAN has continued to grow. Last year, ASEAN member states accounted for 13.47 percent of Taiwan’s overall foreign trade, up from 13.33 percent in 2009.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by