The nation’s exports last month contracted 0.5 percent to US$28.2 billion, as electronics shipments picked up, but non-technology products remained a drag amid a global slowdown, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
“Exports for the rest of this year might stabilize, but a stalemate in US-China trade talks would limit the benefits of the high season for tech products,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing.
Tsai’s guarded optimism came after technology heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) last month gave positive guidance at an investors’ conference, saying that business would improve quarter by quarter.
Semiconductor shipments rose 5.9 percent to US$8.44 billion from a year earlier, outperforming a 1.8 percent growth for overall electronics exports, the mainstay of Taiwan’s trade-focused economy, the ministry said in a report.
Exports of information and communications technology products soared 25.7 percent to US$3.69 billion, as firms relocating their production back to Taiwan continued to benefit year-on-year comparisons and the front-loading effect also came into play, Tsai said.
She said that some clients of Taiwanese manufacturers have strategically built inventory to avoid possible tariff hikes, as an extra 10 percent tariff on US$300 billion of Chinese goods — including smartphones, notebooks, garments and machinery — is scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1.
Tsai said that she failed to see a recovery in demand for DRAM chips as a result of a trade dispute between South Korea and Japan.
“Order transfers are not evident if there are any... Soft demand continued to weigh on the market for memory chips,” Tsai said, adding that Japan has a virtual monopoly on three materials used in high-tech devices.
The ongoing slowdown hit old economy sectors harder, as shipments of chemical, plastic and base metal products continued to post double-digit declines without signs of stabilization in sight, she said.
Shipments to all major trading destinations weakened, except for the US, which reported a 21.7 percent increase to US$4.07 billion, a record for July, the report said.
Imports shrank 5.4 percent to US$24.64 billion, as local companies bought less agricultural raw materials and capital expenditure dropped, the report said.
That yielded a trade surplus of US$3.57 billion, a 54.6 percent increase from the same period last year, it added.
Exports might have a similar lackluster performance this month, as the market for high-end smartphones has become increasingly saturated, despite the planned launches of next-generation devices next month, Tsai said.
In the first seven months of the year, exports contracted 3 percent to US$186.43 billion, while imports fell 0.8 percent to US$162.92 billion, the ministry said.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS