Export orders fell in December to their lowest level in eight months, but demand for mobile phones, microchips and computers rebounded slightly because of a jump in orders for the holiday season.
Export orders fell 8.11 percent last month from a year earlier to US$11.44 billion, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Factory production fell 6.14 percent. While both declines were bigger than economists expected, they were the smallest since April.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and other Taiwan companies expect sales to rise this year as a rebound in the US economy -- forecast to start next quarter -- prompts customers such as Apple Computer Inc and Motorola Inc to place more orders.
For all of last year, export orders dropped 11.54 percent year-on-year to US$135.71 billion and factory production fell 7.53 percent, the ministry said. Both were record annual declines.
UMC, the second-biggest producer of made-to-order chips, said it probably had a NT$3.2 billion loss last year after a NT$50.8 billion profit in 2000 as global chip sales slumped by about a third.
The ministry is expecting a marginal improvement in export orders and factory production from March or April at the earliest, statistics department director Chang Yaw-tzong (
"Any such increase is likely to prove insignificant as a more meaningful recovery is unlikely to materialize until the second half of the year," he said.
The ministry continues to stand by its earlier forecast of a 5 percent increase in export orders this year and a rise of less than 5 percent in factory production this year.
Chang said that the momentum for an economic recovery in the US remains weak.
"I expect an export-driven recovery to bring Taiwan out of recession," said Cici Leung, an economist at JP Morgan Chase & Co in Hong Kong, who forecasts the nation's economy will grow 0.9 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, after contracting 2.4 percent this quarter.
Orders for semiconductors, notebook computers and other electronics products -- Taiwan's biggest exports -- fell 24.2 percent from a year earlier to US$2.2 billion, after falling 31.4 percent in November, the ministry said.
Orders for telecommunications equipment rose 1.8 percent to about US$2.1 billion, compared with a 4.5 percent increase in November.
Orders from US customers declined 10.1 percent last month to about US$3.5 billion after falling 9.1 percent in November. Orders from Europe fell 9.2 percent to US$2 billion, and Japanese orders dropped 30.5 percent to US$970 million.
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