Export orders last month declined for a third straight month to US$36.58 billion as a faltering global economy curtailed demand for PCs and smartphones, statistics released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday showed.
Export orders contracted 5.8 percent from US$38.82 billion in the same period last year, with demand from almost all major export destinations except the US dropping, the statistics showed.
That brought export orders in the first six months to US$217.05 billion, a drop of 1.5 percent from US$220.46 billion a year ago.
“Weak export orders do not bode well for Taiwan’s [economic] growth as well as regional supply chain,” Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd said in a report yesterday. “Due to poor exports order and exports, we expect Taiwan’s economy to grow by 2.81 percent in 2015.”
The bank’s forecast is lower than the government’s prediction of 3.51 percent annual GDP growth this year.
Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), director-general of the ministry’s Department of Statistics, blamed a weak global economy for the disappointing export orders.
“As the global economy lost steam, demand for mid-to-low-end smartphones, computers and tablets slowed, which caused excessive inventories [to build up] and cut orders for Taiwan’s electronics, information and communications, and precision equipment segments,” Lin said in a telephone interview.
“The impact is enormous, as those three segments constitute about 60 percent of Taiwan’s export orders,” Lin said.
The information and communications segment, the pillar of the nation’s exports, was the only bright spot last month, with orders inching up 1.8 percent to US$10.9 billion from a year ago on better demand for wearable devices, the ministry said.
Orders for electronic products, the second-biggest export order item, plunged 6.7 percent year-on-year to US$9.14 billion, the statistics showed.
Precision equipment, primarily LCD panels, shrank 15.9 percent annually to US$2.27 billion as weak demand for notebook computers, monitors and handsets, coupled with intensifying price competition, cut into orders, the ministry said.
Orders from the US, the nation’s largest export market, expanded 6.2 percent to US$10 billion, while orders from China and Hong Kong dropped 11.7 percent annually to US$9.04 billion.
Reversing her optimistic outlook from last month, Lin did not rule out another declined in orders this month as a ministry survey showed only a “slight” improvement from last month.
“We experienced resilient demand in the second half of last year. We cannot be sure [about a pickup] this year as export orders have fallen short of our expectations so far,” Lin said.
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