Export orders declined at a less-than-expected annual rate of 5.3 percent to US$42.55 billion last month, while the annual contraction in export orders is expected to shrink this month, supported mainly by the robust sales figures of Apple Inc’s iPhone 6S smartphones, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The figure beat the ministry’s estimate of a 6.47 percent annual decline, but still marked the seventh consecutive month of annual contraction.
In the first 10 months of this year, export orders fell 3.3 percent to US$372.25 billion from the previous year, data showed.
“We foresee orders this month to be flattish from last month,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Yang Kuei-hsien (楊貴顯) told a press conference, citing the results of a survey conducted by the ministry.
The ministry’s estimate of US$42.55 billion for this month would indicate a 2.2 percent annual decline from last year’s US$43.51 billion.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) said the ministry’s forecast of flattish export orders this month is largely due to the performance of the information, communications and technology (ICT) industry, which was boosted by the launch of new smartphones.
“As the solid growth was driven by new smartphones, the effect could be only temporary. Sluggish global growth, lower commodity prices and a downturn of global electronics demand are to continue to weigh on external demand,” ANZ economist Louis Lam (林慕爾) said in a note.
Lam said that while Taiwan’s smartphone supply chain could give the economy a small boost in the short term, the nation’s overall economy remained soft.
Last month, export orders grew 2.9 percent from a month earlier, driven by robust demand for iPhones, servers and wearable products that boosted orders for the nation’s ICT industry, Yang said.
Sales of precision instrument proved weak, as orders plummeted 24.5 percent annually and 9.2 percent monthly to US$2.18 billion last month, the ministry said.
The annual decline of 24.5 percent for precision instruments is the largest decline since May 2009, Yang said.
“The decline was mainly due to China’s growing production of LCD panels, which led to oversupply in the market and increased the competition in the industry,” he said.
The globally weak demand for TVs, monitors, notebooks and tablets also affected Taiwan’s LCD panel orders, Yang said.
US remained the largest export destination for Taiwan last month, with orders growing 14.8 percent annually and 5.6 percent monthly to US$13.12 billion, ministry statistics showed.
Orders placed from China, Europe, ASEAN and Japan declined from a year earlier, the statistics showed.
Orders from Japan last month dropped more than other export destinations at 24.4 percent from a year ago, largely due to Japanese companies scaling back orders for notebooks and TVs, Yang said.
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