The value of export orders dropped 4 percent annually to US$37.32 billion last month, as soft demand for handheld devices from China offset the demand for handheld devices from other regions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
This is the first time the nation’s export order values dropped annually since July 2013, the ministry said. On a monthly basis, the value fell 2.9 percent from March’s US$38.43 billion.
“Export orders for electronics dropped 0.9 percent annually to US$9.67 billion last month for the first time since June 2013, mainly due to fewer orders for semiconductor products for handsets because of weakening demand in the Chinese market,” Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) told a news conference in Taipei.
The continuing decline in orders from Japan for televisions also dragged down the export performance for electronics products, she said.
Orders for information technology products grew 6.1 percent annually to US$10.05 billion last month, following 12.9 percent annual growth in the previous month, as the weak demand for PCs and tablets offset rising orders for handheld devices, Lin said.
The ministry’s report showed broader declines in export orders for electronics, precision instruments, basic metals, petrochemicals and machinery products last month from a year ago, with those for precision instruments falling 13.6 percent to US$2.37 billion due to the softening demand of flat-panels for PC and smartphones, Lin said.
Orders for machine products declined 5.3 percent annually to US$1.85 billion last month, the first annual decline in the past 15 months, as the yen and euro volatilities affected competitiveness of local machine products, she said.
The US was still the nation’s largest export destination by country, with orders growing 14 percent annually to US$10.59 billion last month, the ministry said.
Orders from China and Hong Kong plunged 10.3 percent to US9.17 billion from a year ago, the deepest annual decline since August 2009, the ministry said, because of the rising localization of supply chains in China.
The continuing decline in international crude oil prices also affected the export order values for Taiwanese petrochemical products to China because of the falling average selling prices, the ministry said.
The value of export orders is expected to rebound this month, Lin said, citing increasing demand for handheld devices to benefit Taiwan’s information technology products.
However, this month’s value is likely to be flat or decline slightly from last year’s US$38.02 billion because of a higher base last year and the lack of growth catalyst this month, she said.
Export order performance in the second half of this year will to be better, fueled by the upcoming launch of an international brand’s new smartphones, she said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS