Taiwan export orders grow at fastest pace in 3 months

Export orders rose at the fastest pace in three months in December as mobile phone and computer manufacturers' assembly plants in China increased production, depleting stocks of electronic components and other parts.

Export orders rose 14.04 percent from a year earlier to US$13.04 billion, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Export orders are indicative of actual shipments in one to three months time. For 2002, orders rose 11.23 percent to US$150.9 billion.

Local factory production rose 10.48 percent last month, up from November's revised 7.8 percent gain. For the whole of 2002, production rose 6.95 percent.

The ministry's Statistics Department chief Chang Yaw-tzong (張耀宗) said both export orders and factory production are expected to post year-on-year growth of over five percent in the first half of this year and the whole of this year.

At the same time, it is likely for GDP growth of last year to come in at above 3.5 percent, higher than the 3.27 percent forecast by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, he said.

Rising sales to China and growing industrial production helped the country recover from its worst recession on record in 2001. The government forecasts the economy grew 3.38 percent in 2003.

Companies' export orders from Hong Kong rose a third to US$2.94 billion in December from a year earlier, the ministry's report showed.

Orders from the US rose 4.6 percent to US$3.7 billion last month, while orders from Europe rose 5.04 percent to US$2.08 billion and those from Japan rose 4.8 percent to US$1.45 billion.