The business climate gauges for the manufacturing and service sectors both rebounded last month, as companies showed increasing confidence in near-term prospects, providing more evidence that the economy could bottom out in the first quarter, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The latest survey conducted by the Taipei-based think tank showed the business climate gauge for the manufacturing sector rising to 89.78 points last month, from a revised 88.58 points in December, ending five consecutive months of declines.
“The rebound was driven by manufacturers’ upbeat sentiment about the near future,” Gordon Sun (孫明德), director of the institute’s macroeconomic forecasting center, told a media briefing.
The survey showed that 45.6 percent of respondents felt bullish about business prospects in the near term, rising from 27.2 percent in the December poll, while those who felt bearish stood at 13.6 percent, down from 34.2 percent, the institute said in a press release.
However, asked about business confidence in the next six months, 48.7 percent of the manufacturers surveyed said they were pessimistic about prospects ahead, compared with 43.9 percent in the December survey, while 12.4 percent said they were optimistic, compared with 17.1 percent in December.
A separate survey conducted by the institute showed that the business climate gauge for the service sector climbed 2.46 points from a month earlier to 90.11 points last month, recording its first increase since May last year, the press release said.
The trend may be an indication that the economy would touch bottom in the first quarter and gradually pick up, Sun said.
However, he cautioned that the Lunar New Year holiday is peak season for the service industry and might have boosted respondents’ sentiment, especially for those in the wholesale and retail industry.
“Overall, it may be more accurate to evaluate the economy’s long-term trend after conducting this month’s survey” and analyzing the combined results of the first two months, Sun said.
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],”