Exports rose 9.4 percent to US$24.32 billion last month from a year earlier, with growth decelerating from March’s 13.2 percent, as demand for electronics used in smartphones and TVs slowed in China, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Despite inventory adjustments, outbound shipments are expected to continue expanding at a high single-digit percentage this month and beyond, amid a stable economic recovery worldwide, the ministry said.
“Demand for smartphones and large-sized TVs turned out weaker than expected over the Labor Day sales season, prompting firms to adjust inventory,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said.
The Chinese market accounted for 39.5 percent of Taiwanese exports and 50 percent of all electronics shipments, Tsai said.
Electronics underpinned exports with a 31.4 percent contribution last month, led by demand for semiconductors, Tsai said, citing the ministry’s monthly report.
Imports of semiconductor equipment rose 80.9 percent last month from a year earlier, indicating that growth momentum for semiconductors remain strong, Tsai said.
Imports expanded at a faster pace of 23.5 percent to US$21.53 billion last month from a year earlier, shrinking the trade surplus to US$2.78 billion, a decrease of 41.9 percent from the same period last year, the report showed.
The trend could help downsize the nation’s current account surplus, one of the main reasons the US Department of the Treasury keeps Taiwan on its currency monitoring list.
Exports to all major trading partners rose and all product categories registered increases, with the exception of textile products due to a seasonal slowdown, the report said.
Shipments to ASEAN markets gained faster momentum, rising 14.1 percent year-on-year to US$4.59 billion last month, the report said, as Taiwanese firms increasingly shift production activity to Southeast Asia.
The migration has helped spur demand for Taiwanese machinery tools, which might receive a further boost as more manufacturers worldwide replace human labor with automation to improve productivity and cut labor costs, Tsai said.
For the first four months of the year, exports expanded 13.6 percent to US$96.42 billion, while imports gained 22.1 percent to US$82.86 billion, the report said.
The cumulative trade surplus amounted to US$13.56 billion, a drop of 20.4 percent from the same period last year.
Tsai declined to speculate on inventory demand related to Apple Inc’s next-generation mobile devices, saying local firms have not given any clues and the ministry is not in a position to tell.
Foreign-exchange volatility and growing competition from Chinese exporters pose downside risks, she said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS