Exports contracted 13 percent year-on-year to US$22.2 billion last month, as clients from across the world remained conservative about building inventory amid global economic uncertainty, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Outbound shipments declined for the 12th consecutive month and would stay in negative territory until knockout technological innovations appear on the horizon to boost manufacturers, officials said.
“Trading partners worldwide are shying away from active inventory-building on lingering concerns over the global slowdown and the oil price rout,” Department of Statistics Director-General Yeh Maan-tzwu (葉滿足) told reporters.
The cautious sentiment might persist through the current quarter and beyond, adding more pressure on the nation’s export-reliant economy.
Poor exports necessitage downward revisions of GDP figures by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, which is to update the data for last quarter and this year later today.
Imports shrank 11.7 percent to US$18.69 billion last month, creating a trade surplus of US$3.51 billion, the ministry’s report said, adding that the surplus was down 19.2 percent from January last year.
The slump in last month’s exports would have widened to 16.8 percent in the absence of two more working days this year, compared with last year, Yeh said.
That suggests a bleak result for this month due to fewer working days and the disruption of the earthquake that struck southern Taiwan on Feb. 6, she said, as some manufacturers have yet to recover full production capacity.
Electronics, which accounted for 31.7 percent of total exports, fell 7.1 percent from a year earlier, while optical shipments plunged 24.5 percent, the report said.
Yeh voiced concern about the feeble demand for camera lenses in light of their double-digit decline for three straight months.
Taichung-based Largan Precision Co (大立光), which supplies camera lenses for Apple Inc’s iPhone, saw its sales drop more than 20 percent last month, company data showed.
Other categories also fared poorly, with chemical shipments down by 19.8 percent and plastics down by 18.3 percent, the report said.
Basic metal and mineral products posted drops of 19.9 percent and 16.5 percent respectively.
Shipments to China, the nation’s largest export destination with a 38.6 percent share, fell 19.3 percent to US$8.56 billion. Exports to the US slipped 5.8 percent to US$2.72 billion, the report said.
Demand from Europe rebounded 3.4 percent to US$2.22 billion thanks to a bounce in demand for electronics components and chemical products, among others, the report said.
The landscape might not brighten until the slowdown in China turns around, Standard Chartered Bank economist Tony Phoo (符銘財) said.
“The latest data suggest the uneven global recovery continues to weigh on Taiwan’s trade performance… We expect exports to remain in negative territory in the first half if demand from China fails to pick up rapidly,” Phoo said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is