Export orders expanded 34 percent last month from a year earlier to US$33.7 billion, marking the third-highest amount on record, thanks to rising demand for panels, computers and handsets.
“The debt crisis in Europe apparently didn’t impact the orders much,” Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實), director of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ statistics department, told a press conference.
The monthly record was set in March with US$34.4 billion in orders, followed by US$33.9 billion in April.
Taking PC-maker Acer Inc (宏碁) as an example, Huang said its sales still grew last month even though European markets account for about 60 percent of the company’s total exports.
Acer revenues were up 36.4 percent last month from April to NT$50.5 billion (US$1.6 billion), despite the European debt crisis. The company had previously voiced concern that the competitiveness of its Europe-bound exports could be hurt by a weakening euro.
The department said cumulative orders for January to last month totaled US$159.9 billion, a rise of 42.7 percent from last year.
China placed orders worth US$9.5 billion last month, a year-on-year growth of 34.3 percent, while European orders rose 42.2 percent to US$5.6 billion. Japan placed 47.6 percent more orders to US$3.9 billion, Huang said.
Six ASEAN nations ordered US$3.1 billion in products, an increase of 31.1 percent from a year earlier.
Orders for the precision machinery sector, including panels, hit a high of US$3.4 billion. Orders for information and communications products — consisting of handsets and notebooks — rose 39.3 percent from a year earlier to US$8.2 billion. Electronics, which include semiconductors and memory chips, rose 32.8 percent to US$8.3 billion.
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