The nation’s manufacturing production value dropped 9.21 percent year-on-year to NT$3.33 trillion (US$101.93 billion) last quarter, mainly affected by the falling prices of international crude oil and some petrochemical firms’ scheduled annual maintenance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“The annual decline in manufacturing production value marks the largest scale of decline since the fourth quarter of 2009,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Yang Kuei-hsien (楊貴顯) said by telephone.
The latest manufacturing data came after the government last week lowered its GDP growth target for this year to 1.56 percent on sluggish exports.
The poor economic data have made local investors jittery, with the benchmark TAIEX yesterday closing 1.9 percent lower at 8,021.84 points, the lowest in nearly 23 months.
Yang said the production value of chemical materials plunged 14.37 percent annually to NT$463.2 billion last quarter, while basic metal industry manufacturing production value plummeted 18.17 percent to NT$324.4 billion from a year earlier, due to falling prices of steel products.
The combined production value of computer, electronics and optical products fell 21.51 percent to NT$172.4 billion last quarter, mainly because of softer-than-expected demand for smartphones, notebook computers and LCD TVs, Yang said.
Hit by weak demand for flat panels, solar cells and LED products, the electronics component industry posted a 3.4 percent annual decline in production value to NT$904 billion last quarter, Yang said.
Due to increased international competition, the production value of the automobile industry fell 8.13 percent to NT$104.8 billion from a year earlier, he added.
However, production value in the semiconductor industry surged 12.94 percent to NT$295.3 billion, while machinery goods grew 2.45 percent to NT$173.9 billion last quarter from a year earlier, data showed.
Yang said that although machinery goods showed an increase in production value from a year earlier, production volume in the industry fell month-by-month last quarter due to fewer export orders, indicating falling average selling prices and slowing growth momentum.
The statistics indicated that Chinese orders for machine tools last month dropped 20 percent from a year earlier, suggesting the industry’s production value might continue to fall this quarter.
Overall, it is possible that the manufacturing sector might see another annual decline in production value this quarter, as some negative factors — such as cheap international crude, weak global economic growth and fierce international competition — could still put pressures on industries, Yang said.
“Whether the manufacturing sector’s performance picks up this quarter will depend on export orders for the semiconductor industry,” Yang said.
The ministry is scheduled to release last month’s export orders performance this afternoon.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS