Manulife Asset Management Co (宏利投信) expects GDP to expand 4.1 percent this year as the nation’s export-reliant economy is benefiting from a new cycle for technology products.
Taiwan is home to the world’s largest contract chipmakers, designers and critical component suppliers, which are ramping up production to meet inventory demand from global technology giants such as Apple Inc.
The benefits are particularly evident for companies in the handset, tablet, Internet-of-Things, LED product and flat-panel supply chains, the company’s Hong Kong-based equity analyst Tan Kenglin (陳景琳) said in Taipei yesterday.
The gradual, but stable recovery in the US is favorable for the nation given the latter’s heavy dependence on the former, a Manulife report showed.
The nation’s GDP should rise 1.25 percent while the US economy would expand by 1 percent, the report said.
China, which accounts for more than 40 percent of Taiwanese exports, also holds great sway over Taiwan’s GDP growth, which could contract 0.6 percent for every 1 percent decline in the Chinese economy, the report said.
The company said it increased its investments in South Korea a few days before the nation lowered its interest rates, allowing its bond value to gain several basis points as bond prices and interest rates evolved in opposite directions.
Manulife Asset Management has kept modest positions in India’s small-cap shares as they tend to grow drastically in the wake of national political elections.
Overall, the fund house is optimistic about emerging markets such as Mexico, Turkey and Venezuela, as the share prices provide good value for money, Cheng 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
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