Despite the slowing expansion of the global economy, the nation’s economic momentum may level off over the next six months on the continuing growth of emerging-market economies, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday, citing the latest Ifo World Economic Survey.
The German institute’s quarterly survey, which surveyed 1,080 experts from 117 economies at the end of last month, showed that respondents gave “satisfactory” assessments of Taiwan’s current economic prospects.
However, compared with the previous quarter’s results, fewer respondents said they felt “bullish” about the next six months, while more kept the “flat” sentiment toward the near future.
“The results indicated more respondents felt concerned about the global economy amid the uncertainties over the US and eurozone debt crises, but the steady expansion in the emerging markets drove them to retain the ‘flat’ outlook for the local economy,” Hsu Chih-hung (徐志宏), a council analyst, told a media briefing.
Private consumption, exports, commodity prices and share prices are expected to rise over the next six months, while capital expenditures were predicted to remain flat, the survey showed.
Most of the experts polled expected the New Taiwan dollar to continue to rise against the US dollar in the near term and for the central bank to continue to raise policy interest rates, Hsu said.
The World Economic Climate indicator, which dropped to 97.7 points in the third quarter from 107.7 points in the previous quarter, provided more evidence that experts have a conservative view of the global economy, Hsu said.
The institute’s economic climate indicators for North America and Western Europe both fell below the average between 1995 and last year, with the indicator for Asia still standing above the long-term average.
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