The nation’s economy floundered in August, with the government’s business monitoring system remaining in the “blue” zone for the third consecutive month, as almost all bellwethers showed negative cyclical movements amid tepid global trade, the National Development Council (NDC) said in a report yesterday.
It is the fourth time this year the monitoring system raised the recession alert as downside risks intensified, especially from China and trading partners in other emerging markets, the council said.
“The economy has a fair chance of improving if private consumption remains resilient,” council Director Wu Ming-huei (吳明蕙) told a media briefing.
Photo: CNA
The coming Christmas season and anniversary sales campaigns by department stores might spur spending, Wu said, adding that a healthy job market might lend support to domestic demand.
The overall reading for the monitoring system remained unchanged at 14 in August, with trade and food services revenue, industrial production, exports, nonagricultural employment and stock indices all pointed downward, the report said.
However, the subindex on imports of machinery and electrical equipment gained 1 point in August to end in stable territory, reflecting confidence in a recovery among some manufacturers, especially chipmakers, the report said.
That should help boost private investment and domestic demand as a whole, although overall sentiment remains conservative, Wu said.
The economy is expected to grow 1.9 percent in the final quarter of this year from the same period last year, driven entirely by domestic demand, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics projected in August.
The forecast came before major technology companies lowered their head count to reduce operating costs.
As of August, more than 200 companies have laid off more than 10,000 employees, with another 700 on unpaid leave, Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文) told the legislature yesterday.
The slowdown appears to have affected both technology and non-technology sectors, Chen said.
The leading indicator index, a gauge of the economic landscape over the past three to six months, shed 0.52 percent to 97.3 last month, softening for the 17th consecutive month, the report said.
The rate of decline was minor and might turn positive later in the year, as the US remains on course for a recovery and China is to adopt more stimulus measures to support its economy, Wu said.
The coincident index, a reflection of current economic conditions, dropped 0.68 percent to 97.09 last month, the 10th month in a row of declines, the report said.
Downside risks linger, notably potential interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve this month or in December, which might cause wild fluctuations across global financial markets, Wu 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