The nation’s export orders plunged 12.4 percent to US$34.19 billion last month, representing the largest scale of annual decline since June 2009, mainly due to a weak international economy and sluggish demand for handheld devices, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The monthly result also marked the 10th consecutive month of annual decline, ministry data showed.
As negative factors, such as the weak global economy and volatility in international crude oil and stainless steel prices persist, the ministry said it expects the nation’s export orders to linger in the negative territory this quarter.
“It is likely that export orders this quarter will continue to contract from a year ago,” Department of Statistics director-general Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) told a news conference.
Lin said due to fewer working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday, the ministry forecast export orders would be between US$26 billion and US$27 billion this month.
That translates to an annual decline of about 13.01 percent from the US$29.89 billion recorded in February last year, and the forecast would mark the lowest monthly performance in the past seven years if it happens, Lin said.
When asked if the Feb. 6 earthquake in southern Taiwan might have affected export orders, Lin said all companies in the affected area resumed operations on Monday and the ministry does not expect the incident to influence export order performance overall.
However, she said some of the firms told the ministry that they would adjust shipping dates due to the earthquake. The ministry foresees a possible delay in shipping would affect performance in the near term.
The latest data on export orders are disappointing and suggest a continued weakness in the current quarter, when GDP is likely to remain in the negative territory after two straight quarters of downturn, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s Hong Kong-based economist Louis Lam (林慕爾) said.
The 12.4 percent decline is poorer than a market forecast of a 10.5 percent drop, due mainly to slack demand for handheld devices, Lam said, as this bodes ill for local firms in the supply chain of global technology giants.
Since export orders foretell actual shipments one to three months ahead, the bleak data reflect faltering demand from trading partners across the world, the economist said.
This reinforces the banking group’s downward revision of the nation’s GDP growth to 1.7 percent this year, down from the 2.04 percent projected in November last year, Lam said.
Last month, due to softer demand for handheld devices and slowing notebook demand, the nation’s information technology sector dropped 11.2 percent annually and 18.5 percent monthly to US$9.89 billion in export orders, the ministry said.
The electronics component sector also saw a 7.9 percent year-on-year and 5.6 percent month-on-month decline to US$9.33 billion last month, because of the predicted slow season and a falling average selling price, Lin said.
Dragged down by the continued dropping prices in international crude oil and stainless steel, export orders for Taiwan’s basic metals, precision instruments, petrochemicals and machinery all fell from December last year, Lin said.
The US remained Taiwan’s largest export destination last month, but orders declined 9.5 percent annually and 12.1 percent monthly to US$9.69 billion last month, with less demand for Taiwan’s information technology and computer component products, she said.
Orders from China and Hong Kong, Europe, Japan and the ASEAN region all fell from December last year, ministry data showed.
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
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