The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday expressed concerns over the manufacturing sector because of tougher competition from Chinese peers over the next two years.
The Taipei-based think tank made the remarks after releasing its latest business climate gauge for several industries.
The institute’s survey showed the gauge for the manufacturing sector dropped to 102.61 points last month, down 1.83 points from the revised 104.44 points recorded the prior month.
“Various global economic uncertainties have made the manufacturers polled more cautious about sentiment ahead,” Gordon Sun (孫明德), director of the institute’s economic forecasting center, told a press conference.
Conflict in the Middle East, continuing weakness in the eurozone and China’s economic restructuring all led to uncertainties for the global economy, Sun said.
Sun said Beijing’s move to accelerate the development of its own electronics supply chain in the next two years may hurt Taiwan’s manufacturing sector and policymakers in Taipei must pay attention.
The survey showed that 28.9 percent of respondents in the manufacturing sector felt bullish about business prospects in the next six months, down from 36.6 percent in the July poll, while 18.6 percent felt bearish, up from 12.5 percent in July.
Asked about the business sentiment for last month, 19.7 percent of the manufacturers polled said they were optimistic about their businesses, down 11.3 percentage points from a month earlier, with those feeling pessimistic rising 2.1 percentage points to 24.4 percent, the poll showed.
A separate TIER survey showed that the business climate gauge for the service sector dropped to 104.15 points last month, from a revised 100.83 points in July.
Meanwhile, trading momentum in the local housing market remained sluggish, as more potential buyers kept a wait-and-see attitude toward the market under the government’s plan to tax capital income on property transactions, institute associate research fellow Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said.
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