Exports slumped 16.9 percent last month from a year earlier, dropping by the fastest pace since August 2009 and widening from 11 percent in October, as a global slowdown pushes the economy closer to a recession, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The grim results came after major technology firms wrapped up inventory building for Christmas sales and oil price disruptions intensified due to a supply glut, the ministry said.
“The landscape remains rugged going forward, as China’s slowdown may constrain demand [for electronics devices] ahead of the Lunar New Year and oil exporters refuse to lower supply,” Department of Statistics Director-General Yeh Maan-tzwu (葉滿足) told reporters.
Photo: CNA
Exports dwindled to US$22.13 billion last month, with the year-on-year decline outpacing that for imports at 13.7 percent to US$19.38 billion, the ministry’s monthly report showed.
That resulted in a trade surplus of US$2.75 billion, representing a fall of 34.2 percent from the same month last year, it said.
The latest trade data bode ill for the nation’s export-driven economy, with GDP likely to decline further after contracting 0.63 percent last quarter.
All product categories logged a double-digit retreat, led by mineral products, which fell 40.1 percent from a year earlier, followed by optical products’ 35.1 percent decline and basic metal products’ 21.8 percent drop, it said.
Electronics shipments, which accounted for 35.1 percent of overall exports, saw an 11.5 percent decrease, as demand for mobile and other devices stalled, Yeh said.
Shipments to China, the nation’s largest export destination with a 39.3 percent share, dropped 19.6 percent to US$8.6 billion, while those to six Southeast Asian countries declined 19.3 percent to US$3.93 billion, the report showed.
US-bound shipments decreased 10.9 percent to US$2.69 billion and weakened 6.1 percent to US$2.01 billion for destinations in Europe, the report said.
The tumble in external demand is unlikely to ease, if companies expect oil prices to drop further, making inventory replenishment expensive now or in the near future, Yeh said.
“Unfortunately, that appears to be the case as evidenced by the reviving volatility in crude oil prices these days,” Yeh said.
The disappointing trade data suggest that Taiwan’s economy has yet to hit the bottom given the pace of downturn similar to that last quarter, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) said.
“If exports contracts more, the growth outlook for this quarter will be severely challenged,” ANZ Hong Kong-based economist Raymond Yeung (楊宇霆) said in a note.
However, the central bank may have priced in the poor results and opt to hold interest rates unchanged at 1.75 percent in its quarterly board meeting next week, the economist said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last