Export orders last month dropped by 12.8 percent to US$35.31 billion, the biggest annual decline in seven years, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday, blaming the decrease to slipping orders for information and communications technology (ICT) products.
Following a short-lived recovery in December last year, export orders for ICT products contracted last month by 17 percent year-on-year to US$9.7 billion due to declining orders of smartphones, laptops and servers.
“We also have to take into account that there were six fewer working days last month [than in January last year] due to the Lunar New Year holiday,” Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) told a news conference in Taipei.
As more than 90 percent of ICT products are produced overseas, mainly in China, the COVID-19 outbreak might further affect production and undercut orders this month, she said.
“We expect the outbreak to affect between US$3 billion and US$3.5 billion of export orders this month,” Huang said, adding that about 80 percent of that amount would come from orders of ICT products.
Orders for electronics, which make up nearly one-third of the nation’s overall export orders, last month posted a relatively mild decline of 1.3 percent to US$10.3 billion, ministry data showed.
“The market for consumer electronics has entered a traditionally weak season, resulting in a smaller number of orders for suppliers,” Huang said.
Nonetheless, growing demand for foundry services and ICs propelled by upcoming 5G deployments helped cushion the fall in electronics orders, she said.
Orders of optoelectronics last month plummeted 18.8 percent to US$1.54 billion and the value might drop further this month due to supply chain disruptions as a result of the outbreak in China, Huang said, citing a government survey of optoelectronics makers.
In non-tech industries, export orders of base metals products; machinery equipment; rubber and plastic products; and chemicals all fell last month amid negative global market sentiment, the data showed.
However, those industries are expected to show annual growth in orders of between 9.7 percent and 14.9 percent this month due to a relatively low comparison base, Huang said.
To assist disease-affected manufacturers, the ministry has proposed budgeting an additional NT$3.47 billion (US$114.7 million) in funds, Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Richard Leu (呂正華) said.
The ministry has also looked at expanding the criteria for firms to be considered eligible to participate in government programs encouraging investment in the nation, he said.
Similar to a program aimed at assisting small and medium-sized enterprises initiated last week, the ministry has proposed an interest rate reduction of 1.06 percent for loans to local manufacturers and plans to allocate about NT$946 million to subsidize their interest payments, he added.
“We would also subsidize manufacturers that seek to sharpen their competitive edge through investment in innovation,” Leu said, adding that free courses would also be offered to companies’ employees.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
Nvidia Corp’s negotiations to invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI have broken down, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, exposing a potential rift between two of the most powerful companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. The discussions stalled after some inside Nvidia expressed concerns about the transaction, the WSJ reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the deliberations. OpenAI makes the popular chatbot ChatGPT, while Nvidia dominates the market for AI processors that help develop such software. The companies announced the agreement in September last year, saying at the time that they had signed a letter of intent for a strategic
RSS