IMPORTS
Consumer goods up 13.2%
Consumer goods imports for the first four months totaled US$11.49 billion, up 13.2 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday last week. Food products accounted for nearly a quarter of the total during the period with US$2.85 billion, up 13.5 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said. Home appliances and IT products represented 19.6 percent of the total imports with US$2.25 billion, followed by health and beauty products at US$2.01 billion, representing 17.5 percent, and vehicle imports of US$1.78 billion, making up 15.5 percent, it said.
AGGREGATE SALES
Up yearly, down monthly
Listed companies last month saw their combined sales increase 12.44 percent year-on-year, but decline 5.07 percent month-on-month, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said on Friday last week. The 933 companies listed on the exchange and 757 firms on the Taipei Exchange posted a combined NT$2.62 trillion (US$88 billion) in revenue last month, driven mainly by firms in the oil and gas, cement, and electric wire and fiber industries, the TWSE said. In the first four months, the 1,690 companies’ aggregate revenue grew 8.6 percent year-on-year to NT$10.46 trillion, it added.
FOREX
Reserves down US$56m
Foreign-exchange reserves last month decreased US$56 million from a month earlier to US$457.13 billion, ending 12 consecutive months of increases due to the depreciation of currencies not denominated in US dollars, the central bank said. The holdings of Taiwanese stocks, bonds and New Taiwan dollar-denominated deposits by foreign investors decreased by US$23.9 billion to US$391.5 billion at the end of last month, the bank said.
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