Taiwan’s export orders hit their second-highest level at US$37.62 billion last month, on the back of strong international demand for local electronics products, such as tablets and smartphones, as well as transportation goods.
The figure was up 11.5 percent from the same month last year and it was a 0.6 percent increase from April, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Taiwan’s export orders hit a record high in March at US$38.99 billion, a 10.1 percent expansion on a year-on-year basis.
For the first five months, cumulative orders stood at US$177.34 billion.
Export orders are an indication of Taiwan’s product and component shipments to overseas -markets over the next one to three months.
Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, attributed solid momentum last month to the launch of tech gadgets, such as tablets and smartphones, which use Taiwanese electronics components such as chips, printed circuit boards and passive components.
An orders surge was also seen in transportation goods, which expanded 73.8 percent year-on-year to US$1.46 billion.
That was because CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船), the nation’s biggest shipbuilder, won a bid last month from Evergreen Group (長榮集團) to build 10 container vessels for US$1.03 billion. Delivery of these vessels is set to begin in the fall of 2013 at the latest.
According to the ministry, China placed US$9.85 billion in orders with Taiwan last month, marking year-on-year growth of 3.6 percent.
The US ordered 17.5 percent more goods from Taiwan, US$8.26 billion, while Europe ordered 23.9 percent more, US$6.9 billion.
Six ASEAN countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) placed US$4.25 billion in orders with Taiwan — a rise of 35.5 percent from last year.
Large orders for transportation equipment from ASEAN countries helped to push the value of their orders over those of Japan for the first time, Tsai said.
In contrast, Japanese orders -declined 8.8 percent to US$3.56 billion because it was still recovering from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which led to rolling blackouts, hindering production, she added.
When broken down by products, orders for information and communications products — such as handsets and notebooks — advanced 12.4 percent from a year earlier to US$9.22 billion last month.
Orders for electronics components — including semiconductors and memory chips — rose 3.5 percent to US$8.55 billion.
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