Taiwan calculates its GDP based on international standards and cannot do it any other way, National Development Council Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said yesterday, in response to an economics professor’s criticism that the formula is flawed.
Kuan said GDP is determined by a set of rules followed by the international community and Taiwan cannot just use its own formula.
“In the future, should Taiwan’s calculation of GDP become unique in the world?” Kuan asked, in response to a front-page story in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) contending that Taiwan’s GDP is inflated by overseas earnings that do not contribute to the local economy.
The Liberty Times quoted National Central University professor Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮) as saying that as a measure of domestic economic activity, GDP should only include economic output generated domestically or overseas earnings remitted home.
Since 2005, Taiwan has included the overseas earnings of Taiwan-based companies into its calculations, even if they are not remitted to Taiwan, which has made GDP a less reliable indicator of the nation’s true economic strength, Chiou said.
If the US$19.3 billion in overseas earnings Taiwanese companies reported last year, much of which was not remitted to Taiwan, was left out of the GDP calculation, the nation’s GDP growth would have been negative rather than growing at a rate of 2.11 percent, the paper quoted him as saying.
That was misleading, because it did not exclude overseas earnings from Taiwan’s GDP in 2012, with which last year’s GDP was compared, he said.
Overseas earnings reported by local companies rose US$1.99 billion last year, while real GDP rose by nearly NT$320 billion (US$10.6 billion).
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS