The economy grew 3.46 percent year-on-year last quarter on the back of exports, but missed the government’s forecast of 3.5 percent due to weak private investment and fiscal spending, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The expansion, while better than the 3.35 percent increase three months earlier, translated into a parlous 0.27 percent gain on a seasonally adjusted basis, slowing from 1.17 percent in the preceding quarter, the DGBAS said in a report.
The statistics agency attributed the lackluster GDP reading to poor private investment and government spending, which contracted 1.2 percent and 2.5 percent respectively during the January-to-March period.
Domestic demand, which is widely expected to drive the economy this year, contributed a mere 0.77 percentage points last quarter, the report said, while external demand generated 2.69 percentage points.
“Capital equipment purchases faltered last quarter, especially among major semiconductor manufacturers, even though domestic airlines expanded their fleets,” DGBAS official Jasmine Mei (梅家瑗) said.
Private consumption lifted GDP by 1.38 percentage points last quarter, as wage increases and energy cost savings energized tourism and car sales, the report found.
Outbound tourism jumped 12.13 percent last quarter, while domestic highway tolls gained 11.37 percent and new car licenses picked up 9.09 percent, the report said.
The Japanese yen’s sharp depreciation helped attract Taiwanese tourists and boost passenger loads for Taiwanese airline companies, the report said.
By industry breakdown, manufacturers continued to play the backbone, raising GDP growth last quarter by 1.9 percentage points, the report said.
Retailers, financial service providers, hoteliers, restaurants, real-estate builders and other sectors all made contributions of less than 1 percentage point, the report said. That affirms the nation’s heavy reliance on exports and therefore makes it susceptible to headwinds abroad, the report added.
Foreign institutes remained positive about the nation’s growth outlook, but with growing caution.
Barclays PLC cut its forecast for the nation’s GDP growth by 50 basis points to 4 percent for this year, on concerns over a deeper slowdown in China and a more gradual recovery in the US.
“We expect public spending to stay subdued ahead of the presidential and legislative elections next year, in light of little progress on many infrastructure projects, such as the Taoyuan Aerotropolis Project, amid rising political uncertainty,” Barclays economist Leong Wai Ho (梁偉豪) said in a note.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) stood by its growth forecast of 4.2 percent for Taiwan, but turned more vigilant on downside risks.
Local manufacturers may substitute local production with overseas output after expanding facilities in offshore sites last year, ANZ economist Raymond Yeung (楊宇霆) said.
The ongoing drought and unstable water supplies would also interrupt domestic activities, Yeung 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],”