The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month reached 58.3 points, as local firms reported a hardy pickup in new business and industrial output ahead of the peak sales season for technology products, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
It was the 27th consecutive month that the economic bellwether expanded and most firms expect the uptrend to continue for the rest of the year, CIER president Wu Chung-shu (吳中書) said.
“Firms are generally upbeat about their operations, profitability and employment levels moving forward, suggesting continued improvement for the nation’s export-focused economy,” Wu told a media briefing.
The economic barometer gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with scores above 50 indicating an expansion and those below indicating a contraction.
All major sectors last month reported business improvement, the report showed.
The critical sub-index of new business rose from 56.2 points to 61 points, while the reading on industrial output climbed from 59.6 points to 61 points, it said, although some firms involved in supplying biotechnology, chemical and transportation equipment products fared worse.
Taiwanese firms could benefit from order transfers in the short term as trade rows between the US and China pan out, Wu said, adding that escalating disputes would hurt global economic growth.
Thus far, the effect is not evident either way, the academic said.
The current quarter is the peak sales season for firms in the supply chains of global smartphone and personal computer brands, which are about to launch their latest generation of devices, Wu said, adding that rosy sentiment across the board explains why the six-month business outlook last month held high at 60.8 points.
The increase in the delivery time of suppliers from 59.2 points to 60.2 points would lend strength to healthy factory activity, he said.
The private Nikkei Taiwan Manufacturing PMI reached a similar conclusion with a value of 54.5 points.
Annabel Fiddes, chief economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey, said that the access to inputs remains a key concern for industry, with widespread reports of stock shortages stretching delivery times.
Growing input demand also enabled vendors to raise prices and pushed inflationary pressures close to a seven-year high, Fiddes said.
The non-manufacturing index improved, a separate CIER report said.
The gauge last month rose to 54.7 points, but restaurant and hotel operators failed to share the optimism for fear that pension reform would prompt retired civil servants, military personnel and public-school teachers to cut travel spending, Wu said.
Reforms went into effect this month in a bid to keep the pension program from going bankrupt.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the