The nation’s current account posted a surplus of US$2.01 billion, while the financial account showed a net outflow of US$6.64 billion in the third quarter, leaving a deficit of US$2.6 billion in the overall balance of payments attributable to falling exports, the central bank said yesterday.
Exports grew by 7.7 percent in value in the third quarter from a year ago, bolstered by a steady increase in exports to neighboring countries, Yeh Rong-tzao (葉榮造), deputy chief of the central bank’s economic research division, told a media briefing.
Yeh said imports expanded by 20 percent from last year because of a substantial increase in the purchase of crude oil, minerals and iron and steel products.
Goods trade recorded a surplus of US$1.51 billion, representing a sharp decrease of US$6.39 billion, down a record 80.9 percent from the previous year, Yeh said.
Meanwhile, the bank said its profit next year would probably be hurt by falling interest rates as the global economy worsens.
The bank expected net income of NT$121.4 billion (US$3.6 billion) next year, governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) told the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. That was less than the NT$176.9 billion profit through last month, Perng’s report said.
Income from foreign-currency assets may decline as central banks lower borrowing costs to prevent a prolonged global recession. The US Federal Reserve would probably cut its key rate to zero over the next two months to staunch deflation, JPMorgan Chase & Co said.
The profit in the first 10 months beat a full-year forecast of NT$134.3 billion, Perng’s report said.
“The central bank made some money in operations in foreign-exchange markets,” he said, without giving details.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said