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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last