The nation's export orders rose 9.27 percent year-on-year to reach US$31.36 billion last month, the lowest growth since March last year because of deteriorating growth in electronics products and precision equipment, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Among major export order items, chemical products saw the biggest growth last month, which surged 61.43 percent year-on-year, because of skyrocketing crude oil prices and consumer expectations, the ministry said in its report.
By region, export orders from the US last month declined US$280 million, or 3.86 percent, from a year ago to reach US$7.03 billion. Electrical and electronics equipment saw the most significant decrease, and each declined by US$100 million.
What is worth noticing is that the decline of export orders from the US last month was the first decline since April 2003. However, the ministry attributed it to the higher base in June last year and said the actual amount has not seen much fluctuation over the past two months.
“Last month’s results showed that since the US subprime mortgage crisis burst out, the US companies have become more cautious about their storage management and try to reduce the amount of their storage,” Tony Phoo (符銘財), chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd, said by telephone yesterday.
In addition, export order growth from China and Hong Kong has remained below 20 percent from April to last month, compared with the above 20 percent growth from July last year to the end of first quarter, which Phoo said indicated a slowdown in China’s export growth.
“Taiwanese electronics companies will also be impacted by China’s slowing export growth because a lot of them manufacture their products in China,” Phoo said.
Despite this, Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實), director of the ministry’s Department of Statistics, said yesterday that the target of US$360 billion for the total amount of export orders this year was achievable, as the nation’s economic climate would ameliorate in the second half of this year. The total amount of export orders has accumulated to US$182.44 billion in the first six months of the year, he said.
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