The nation’s business climate stayed unchanged last month, failing to meet the expectations of a rebound, although the government continued to bet on a pickup due to the advent of the high sales season for consumer electronics.
The government’s business climate monitor signaled “yellow-blue” for the fourth consecutive month, as major economic barometers produced results similar to those in June, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday.
“The monitor still has a fair chance of turning ‘green’ this quarter as global technology brands unveil their new-generation products, spurring demand for electronic parts,” NDC research director Wu Ming-huei (吳明蕙) told a media briefing.
The council uses a five-color system to indicate the nation’s economic status, with “green” indicating steady growth and “red” suggesting overheating, while “blue” signals a recession.
The latest signal came despite exports and export orders continuing to increase by double-digit percentages last month from a year earlier.
Wu said the council stood by its cautiously optimistic view about the economic landscape going forward, despite downside risks associated with US monetary policy changes, international trade conflicts and geopolitical tensions.
Of the constituent indices, the stock closing prices and imports of machinery and electric capital equipment reported positive cyclical movements, although they lost some steam, a report by the council showed.
The rapidly emerging Internet of Things technologies and devices also bode well for Taiwanese firms that seek to shift their focus away from hardware production to software development.
The index of leading indicators, which aims to predict economic activity in the coming six months, increased 0.18 percent to 101.08, rising for the second month in a row, the council said.
Besides export orders, building permits and business sentiment also reported an uptick, it said.
The index of coincident indicators, which reflects the current economic state, fell 0.09 percent to 100.17, but the pace of decline narrowed, the council said.
Power consumption, non-agricultural payrolls, wholesale and retail sales, and restaurant revenues all rose from the previous month, it said.
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
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”