The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday said the nation’s economy would bottom out in the first quarter of next year, after dropping its GDP growth forecast by 1.06 percentage points to 4.64 percent for this year.
In July, the Taipei-based institute estimated a 5.7 percent economic growth rate for Taiwan this year.
“The recent rising uncertainties in the global economy weakened Taiwan’s export sector in the third quarter amid weak demand, dragging down local companies’ investments and consumers’ confidence,” TIER president David Hong (洪德生) told an economics conference.
The institute revised its growth forecasts for private consumption and private investment for this year to 3.48 percent and 2.48 percent respectively, compared with the 3.82 percent and 3.26 percent it previously estimated, TIER said in a report.
The output sector is expected to expand 6.03 percent this year, with the input sector growing 2.53 percent, the report said.
Next year, the institute said, the economy would grow 4.22 percent.
TIER said the economy would expand by 2.36 percent in the first quarter of next year, the lowest quarterly increase of the year, after growing 4.32 percent this quarter.
However, Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), the institute’s vice president, said growing momentum in the economy may see it return to a more normal track in the second half of next year, with the technology sector leading the rebound.
“The latest data from domestic technology companies has shown some signs of bottoming, such as gradually digested inventory,” Kung said.
A similar trend was seen in the institute’s latest survey on the business climate in the manufacturing sector, which showed an overall “green” light — indicating steady sentiment — for next year, compared with a “yellow-blue” light, a sign of weak sentiment, flashing for this year, said Gordon Sun (孫明德), deputy director of the institute’s macroeconomic forecasting center.
The survey found that 34.3 percent of respondents felt bullish about business sentiment for next year, 43.8 percent thought it would be flat and 29.5 percent felt it would be bearish, Sun said.
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