DBS Bank (星展銀行) has maintained its GDP growth forecast for the nation at 1.9 percent for this year, as better-than-expected investment has offset declining exports, Singapore-based DBS economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) told a news conference in Taipei.
That compares with a growth estimate of 2.2 percent by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), 2.1 percent by Standard Chartered Bank (渣打銀行), 2.01 percent by Academia Sinica and 2.06 percent by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (中華經濟研究院).
DBS has cut its GDP growth forecast for Singapore from 3 percent to 0.7 percent due to slumping exports and has lowered its forecast for Hong Kong from 2.5 percent to less than 2 percent due to political events, Ma said.
“Taiwan is likely to rank second among the four Asian Dragons, after only South Korea’s 2.1 percent growth,” Ma said.
Taiwanese exports showed a slight pickup of 0.5 percent last month from a year earlier after five consecutive months of declines, but the whole year’s exports are still expected to decline by less than 5 percent from last year, Ma said.
By comparison, domestic investment is forecast to grow 4.9 percent this year, the highest in six years, on the back of 93 returning businesses investing about NT$452 billion (US$14.54 billion), she said.
“Taiwan has seen capital goods imports continue to climb this year, which was strange at first glance considering that the nation’s exports were plummeting, but it makes sense as more Taiwanese firms prepare to move home,” Ma said.
Most of the returning firms belong to the information and communications technology sector, as they try to avoid extra tariffs amid a trade dispute between China and the US, she said.
Overall, a growing service industry, increasing arrivals of foreign tourists, rising exports to the US, solid private consumption and mild inflation have also helped the nation’s economy mitigate the effects of falling exports, she said.
The nation is forecast to post 1.7 percent GDP growth in the second quarter, flat from the previous quarter, and 1.9 percent and 2.2 percent growth respectively in the third and fourth quarters, she added.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics is scheduled to reveal second-quarter GDP growth and update its full-year GDP forecast next month after trimming its forecast from 2.27 percent to 2.19 percent in May.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
RSS