Taipei Computer Association president Tung Tsu-hsien (童子賢) yesterday said he expects the economy to perform better in the second half of this year on the back of the upcoming peak season for the information and communication technology (ICT) industry.
Tung, who doubles as Pegatron Corp (和碩) chairman, said recent disappointing economic data stemmed largely from the relatively weak export performance of the ICT industry because of seasonal factors. Exports of ICT products constitute a substantial amount of the nation’s total exports.
“The first and second quarter seem to be slow season, but technology companies are actually busy preparing for the peak season in the second half of the year,” Tung told reporters on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the annual Computex Taipei trade show.
Photo: AP
Last year, exports of electronics and ICT products grew 14.56 percent annually to US$113 billion, which shows that the nation’s technologies continue to lead the global ICT industry, Tung said.
However, the government’s business monitoring indicator slipped into the “blue” zone last month, indicating the export-reliant economy is weakening, the National Development Council reported on Wednesday last week.
The nation’s exports fell 11.7 percent annually to US$23.49 billion in April, with overseas shipments in the electronics segment dropping 3.2 percent to US$7.89 billion in April, according to Ministry of Finance data.
Tung said he is optimistic about the economic outlook in the second half of the year, driven by strong sales in the ICT industry as peak season approaches.
“In the long term, I am also confident that Taiwanese tech companies’ investments in cloud-computing and wearable devices will pay off in the next few years,” Tung said.
In related news, the Ministry of Economic Affairs during the opening ceremony said that Taiwan is to deepen cooperation with the US by launching a Taiwan-US Digital Economy Forum in the second half of this year.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Charles Rivkin, who jointly announced the cooperation plan at the ceremony, said the forum would include interagency delegations led by senior economic policymakers from Taiwan and the US.
The forum would also invite participants from the government, academia and the private sector to join the discussions, Rivkin said.
“The high-level, multi-stakeholder platform will give us the opportunity to explore ways to strengthen our partnership and coordination on digital trade, innovation and Internet policy issues,” Rivkin said.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Bill Cho (卓士昭) said National Development Council Minister Woody Duh (杜紫軍) would lead Taiwan’s delegation to join the forum in Taipei later this year.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
APPRECIATION: The central bank stepped in to stabilize the NT dollar after a surge in foreign institutional investment, triggered by optimism about tariffs and US Fed policy Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, as the central bank intervened in the currency market to curb the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar. Foreign exchange reserves increased by US$5.48 billion from May, reaching an all-time high of US$598.43 billion, the central bank said on Friday. While the central bank did not disclose the scale of its intervention, Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民) said that the currency market remained relatively stable until the middle of last month. However, a shift occurred following the US Federal Reserve’s signal of a
RSS