Strong exports saw the nation’s GDP expand at the fastest pace over the past seven quarters in spite of the negative impact of the latest food scare, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The economy grew 3.78 percent year-on-year in the July-to-September period. The increase was also 0.16 percentage points higher from the 3.62 percent growth forecast made by the DGBAS in August.
On a quarterly basis, GDP increased by 0.37 percentage points from 3.41 percent three months earlier, the agency said in its latest report.
The DGBAS attributed the economic performance last quarter — the strongest growth since the fourth quarter — to solid growth in the output sector (including both merchandise and services exports), which rose 7.3 percent year-on-year, up 1.51 percentage points from the agency’s forecast of 5.79 percent.
Merchandise exports surged 6.68 percent from the third quarter last year, driven mainly by strong shipments of electronics products amid the launch of Apple Inc’s iPhone 6.
Services exports also climbed on the back of a 21.78 percent year-on-year growth in inbound tourism during the period, the report said.
However, the ongoing cooking oil scandal caused food and beverage sales to slow to 2.55 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, compared with the 4.58 percent increase recorded three months earlier.
“The tainted oil scandal last month, centered on Chang Guann Co (強冠企業), dragged down private consumption by NT$2.4 billion [US$78.75 million], which cut GDP growth in the third quarter by 0.05 percentage points,” DGBAS senior executive officer Jasmine Mei (梅家瑗) told a press conference.
Last quarter, private consumption was dented not only by the adverse impact from the food scare, but also rising consumer prices, in particular the higher cost of dining out, the DGBAS said.
As the cooking oil scandal spread, with food giant Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) becoming embroiled, Mei said the issue may continue affecting the nation’s economic growth this quarter.
Capital formation — which includes public and private-sector investment in fixed assets — for last quarter rose 7.89 percent from a year earlier, the report said. The figure followed an annual increase of 6.9 percent the previous quarter and was higher than the DGBAS’ estimate of 7.79 percent, thanks to new investments by airlines and semiconductor companies, it said.
Overall, the economy continued to gain steam last quarter and the DGBAS may further revise full-year economic growth later this month, said Tony Phoo (符銘財), a Taipei-based economist at Standard Chartered Bank.
“We believe the economy is on track to record its best annual growth performance in past three years in 2014,” Phoo said in a research note.
Hong Kong-based ANZ Research senior economist Raymond Yeung (楊宇霆) expects the central bank to continue to closely monitor capital flows and manage market liquidity via the issuance of negotiable certificates of deposit, with the earliest timing for an interest rate hike to be in the first quarter next year.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
RSS