The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is optimistic about Taiwan’s export performance for a second half of this year after the year-on-year increase in outbound sales last month for the 11th consecutive month.
The Bureau of Foreign Trade on Friday said that Taiwan is riding waves of solid global demand and enjoying a strong performance in exports at a time when the world’s economy is on the path of recovery.
Exports increased 12.7 percent year-on-year to US$27.77 billion last month, the highest in almost three years, according to Ministry of Finance trade data.
In the first eight months of this year, exports totaled US$202.59 billion, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
The bureau said that it has helped by organizing 66 overseas trade promotion events for more than 23,000 local firms so far this year, which helped exporters strike more than 1,600 deals worth more than US$5.2 billion.
The bureau said it will continue with its promotional efforts and take advantage of an increase in global demand.
Despite the MOEA’s optimism, Liu Meng-chun (劉孟俊), an economist at Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (中華經濟研究院), said that it is worth staying alert over external factors such as trade disputes between China and the US, the Brexit talks, and geopolitical unease related to North Korea and the Middle East, as such factors could affect the global economy.
In related news, the MOEA held a Taiwan Day event in Malaysia on Friday for Taiwanese e-commerce operators that want to explore opportunities in that nation.
Department of Commerce deputy head Chen Mi-shun (陳秘順) said 21 Taiwanese vendors displayed their products and held meetings with potential clients.
ASEAN, and Malaysia in particular, is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the world, Chen said.
The government wants to help local e-commerce businesses explore opportunities by promoting the profile of their brands and helping them find partners, Chen said.
Malaysia has a population of over 30 million and its economic growth is driven mainly by domestic demand.
Personal consumption accounts for 55.2 percent of the nation’s GDP, according to commerce department data.
Malaysia’s e-commerce market value is forecast to reach US$7.22 billion by 2025.
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],”