The nation’s leading indicator index rose by 0.2 percent from September to 131.4 points last month, indicating a better economic outlook for the near future, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.
The index’s annualized six-month rate of change, which provides a more accurate forecast of the business cycle in the near term, however, decreased by 0.37 percent to 3 percent last month, the council said.
The coincident index was up 0.6 percent to 133.3 points, its third consecutive increase.
Citing the simultaneous increase of the coincident index and shrinking of the annualized six-month rate of change, Hung Jui-bin (洪瑞彬), director-general of the council’s economic research department, told a press conference that the domestic economy was picking up.
Hung cautioned that economic momentum was still weak since the annualized six-month rate of change was still decreasing.
The European debt crisis and the US fiscal cliff remained risk factors, he said.
The dire stock market conditions and the stagnation of salaries has caused low private consumption, he added.
The overall monitoring indicators last month flashed “yellow-blue” for the second month, with the total score of the indicators dropping two points to 18, the report’s data showed.
The production, consumption, financial situation and labor market are heading in a positive direction, while exports remained weak, Hung said.
The indicator of custom-cleared exports lost three points last month, changing its individual signal from “yellow-red” to “blue,” while the indicator for the sales index of wholesale, retail and food services gained one point and changed its individual signal from “blue” to “yellow-blue.”
Lin Lih-jen (林麗貞), the council’s researcher, said that export values in September and last month were similar. The higher year-on-year growth rate in September was because of a low base effect last year when an accident at a Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) factory drove down petrochemical exports for that month.
The council revised both its signals for manufacturing sales and sales index of wholesale, retail, and food services in September from “yellow-blue” to “blue,” reducing the total score of monitoring indicators in September from 22 points to 20 points.
Commenting on the report, Chen Pao-chih (陳博志), former chairman of the CEPD, said that many economic indicators have not yet returned to levels seen before the global financial crisis in 2007.
Although there are many signs that the economic situation will not deteriorate further, it does not follow that economic conditions are improving, Chen said.
If the economic momentum remains low for a year, the base level will be lowered, making growth in the following year easier to see, Chen said.
To gauge whether the economy is recovering, people should look at the actual numbers, instead of growth rates, he said.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day