Taiwan’s economy is likely to hold steady this quarter on the back of a favorable global landscape, but the outlook for private investment and consumption is dull, the Germany-based Ifo Institute said in its latest quarterly World Economic Survey.
The Munich-based institute arrived at the observations for the first quarter of this year after surveying 1,199 experts in 120 nations.
The confidence gauge for the global economic climate rose from 17.1 to 26 quarter-on-quarter, the highest in more than 10 years and the fifth consecutive increase, according to the survey released on Wednesday last week.
The rosy view might extend into the first half of the year with the six-month outlook gauge printing 23.9, up from 16.9 three months earlier, the survey said.
Economic improvement abroad is favorable to the nation’s export-focused economy, although the private sector is still conservative about capital equipment spending, the survey said.
Experts hold an overall neutral view about the nation’s current economy, with the reading kept at zero, suggesting an equal number of positive and negative opinions, it said.
That is because more experts hold a dim view about private investment and fewer people are upbeat about private consumption, the survey said.
Capital equipment imports by Taiwanese semiconductor firms have been in negative territory since May last year, following a year of active purchases to maintain their technology leadership on the world stage, it said.
Government officials and economists expect private investment to improve noticeably this year, driven by rapidly growing artificial intelligence and Internet of Things applications, it showed.
The emerging technologies are expected to offset the slowdown in smartphone sales as demand for mobile devices becomes increasingly satiated, analysts said.
Taiwan is home to the world’s largest contract chipmakers and chip designers as well as suppliers of camera lenses, casings, tough panels and other critical components used by smartphone brands.
Six months from now, the economy is likely to show positive cyclical movements on the back of better exports, imports, capital spending and private consumption, the survey cited experts as saying.
Inflationary pressures might increase while long and short-term interest rates might rise, the survey said.
Global central banks are expected to take cues from the US Federal Reserve and normalize their monetary policies this year, while most experts bet that Taiwan might keep its current monetary policy to support GDP growth, it said.
Against this backdrop, the chances that the US dollar will rise against the New Taiwan dollar are higher than three months earlier, the survey said.
A weak NT dollar is favorable to local exporters, boosting pricing competitiveness and allowing them to book foreign-exchange gains when settling payments.
In addition, local shares might tumble further after corrections earlier this month, trailing global equity markets, the survey said.
Concerns over monetary tightening heightened after US economic barometers fared better than expected, rocking global markets.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day