Exports contracted 4.6 percent from a year earlier to US$28.1 billion last month, as falling shipments of non-tech products more than wiped out growth from electronics and communications devices, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The tepid showing might persist through the end of the year, despite consumer electronics entering its high season, as the US-China trade dispute could make them more expensive and dampen sales, the ministry said.
“Major product categories slipped into contraction mode except for electronics and information and communication devices,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing in Taipei.
The data reversed a 2.6 percent increase in August, indicating that a solid recovery is unlikely in the short term, Tsai said.
She predicted that exports would decline by between 2 and 3.5 percent for the current month and beyond.
Last month’s outbound shipments of electronics, mainly semiconductors, rose 2.4 percent to US$10.37 billion, aided by healthy demand for new-generation smartphones and upcoming 5G applications, Tsai said.
In addition, many local firms in Apple Inc’s iPhone 11 series supply chain benefitted from its better-than-expected market reception.
Exports of information and communications technology devices jumped 18.5 percent to US$3.61 billion, the ministry’s report showed.
However, that had more to do with trade rerouting rather than a pickup in demand, Tsai said.
Altogether, exports shrank 0.8 percent to US$85.03 billion during the July-to-September quarter from a year earlier, slightly deeper than the 0.1 percent retreat the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics forecast in August.
“That is because plastics, chemicals, minerals and base metal products continued to drag overall performance, with no sign of a turnaround,” Tsai said.
Shipments of machinery equipment also reported a double-digit decline last quarter, as customers in China and elsewhere refrained from capacity expansion or upgrade, she said.
Imports edged down 0.6 percent from a year earlier to US$24.97 billion last month, as companies turned cautious about buying raw materials, leaving a trade surplus of US$3.13 billion last month, the ministry said.
Imports of capital equipment soared 22.2 percent year-on-year, propelled mainly by semiconductor companies, suggesting that customers overseas are keen about 5G deployment, Tsai said.
For the third quarter, imports fell 3.2 percent to US$72.26 billion, allowing Taiwan to reap a 15.1 percent increase in trade surplus to US$12.78 billion, ministry data showed.
For the first nine months of the year, exports dropped 2.5 percent to US$242.3 billion, while imports contracted 1.2 percent to US$209.56 billion, the ministry said.
The trade surplus with the US gained another US$1.22 billion last month to US$8.52 billion for the first three quarters, ministry data showed.
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],”