Growth in export orders last month extended to a 13th consecutive month of annual increases, up 7.5 percent to US$40.78 billion, beating the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ forecast, the ministry said yesterday.
The growth was driven by orders for flat panels and products of traditional industries.
The ministry had forecast annual growth of between 4.1 percent and 6.8 percent.
Last month’s value also represented the highest for the month of August in the ministry’s export order datasets.
“The demand for large-sized flat panels used in TVs and small panels for handsets last month was much stronger than manufacturers’ expectations,” Department of Statistics Director-General Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞) told a news conference in Taipei.
With the average selling prices for large panels declining, Chinese TV vendors bought more panels in preparation for next month’s week-long Chinese National Day holiday, Lin said.
Orders for optical products, including flat panels, jumped by 21.9 percent to US$2.46 billion last month, the ministry’s data showed.
Basic metals, chemical products, machinery goods and plastics and rubber goods all rose by double-digit percentage points last month from a year ago, the data showed.
However, orders for electronics components and information technology and communications products were relatively softer, the data showed.
Orders for electronics components grew by only 1 percent year-on-year to US$10.55 billion, and a decline in smartphone chips orders offset the increase in orders of foundry and memory products, Lin said.
Orders for information technology and communications products rose by 0.2 percent annually to US$10.54 billion, as the lackluster smartphone orders from an international company neutralized the growth in orders for notebook computers, servers and networking devices, she said.
“We expect information technology and communications orders will see a strong rise this month, after Apple Inc starts to ship its new iPhones later this month,” Lin said.
China and Hong Kong replaced the US to become the nation’s largest market by destination, with orders growing 11.6 percent annually to US$10.9 billion, driven by demand for flat panels, plastics and rubber goods, Lin said.
Orders from the US dropped 0.8 percent to US$10.83 billion, the first annual contraction since November last year, she said.
The ministry forecast the overall orders this month would climb by between 1.3 percent and 3.6 percent year-on-year to between US$43.5 billion and US$44.5 billion, she said.
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