The government’s business monitoring system last month flashed “green” for the fifth consecutive month, reflecting a moderate, but continued improvement in the economy, the National Development Council said yesterday.
The council’s composite monitoring indicators seek to measure growth or decline in nine areas of the economy.
The overall score — which includes the leading and coincident indicators — increased by 2 points from October to 26 points last month, its highest level in the past 26 months.
“The performance came on the back of improving exports and local manufacturers’ increasing shipments,” council research director Wu Ming-huei (吳明蕙) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The council uses a five-color system to categorize Taiwan’s economic health, with “blue” signaling a recession, “green” steady growth and “red” overheating, while “yellow-blue” indicates a transition between recession and growth, and “yellow-red” a transition between growth and overheating.
The customer-cleared exports and producers’ shipments for manufacturing readings both shifted from “yellow-blue” to “green” last month, while seven other business gauges remained unchanged.
Most other gauges also flashed “green,” including the indices for M1B money supply, the local bourse, the industrial production index and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research’s manufacturing composite indicator.
The gauges for non-agricultural employment and for sales in the retail, wholesale and restaurant sectors flashed “yellow-blue,” while the sub-index for imports of machinery and electrical equipment was “red” last month, the report showed.
The index of leading indicators, which is used to gauge the nation’s short-term economic outlook, slightly decreased from 100.36 in October to 100.31 last month, the report showed.
The council attributed the slowdown to fewer building permits being issued during the period, reflecting a slowdown in Taiwan’s construction industry.
Despite the decline, five other components trended up, indicating an improvement in the nation’s economy, Wu told reporters.
Taiwanese semiconductor companies’ orders and shipments last month soared 21.22 percent and 25.22 percent year-on-year respectively, she cited statistics as saying.
The index of coincident indicators, which is used to gauge current economic conditions, reported its ninth consecutive month of increases, up from 103.42 points in October to 104.39 last month.
Wu said that domestic demand might further benefit from local semiconductor makers’ investments in advanced processing technologies and the approaching high season for domestic retailers.
Although optimistic about the economy’s outlook, the council said the government would keep an eye on US economic policies and the effects of Brexit.
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