The nation’s exports are predicted to post a year-on-year increase for last month, ending a two-month losing streak, on the back of rising demand ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, Lai Yi-hsin (賴怡欣), a senior research fellow at the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute (元大寶華綜經院), said on Saturday.
In addition to fourth quarter peak-season effects, an increase in the number of working days last month compared with the same month last year and foreign buyers frontloading orders ahead of the Lunar New Year would also help boost exports, Lai said.
According to the institute’s forecast, exports would show year-on-year growth of 1.7 percent, reversing a 1.5 percent decline in October and a 4.6 percent drop in September.
Lai said her optimistic forecast was based on an improvement in manufacturing activity last month, when the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 3.8 points from a month earlier to 54.9, the highest since July last year.
In addition, the sub-index for new export orders rose to 50.3 from 47.2 in October, marking the first expansion since May and signaling a positive lead for outbound sales, she said.
Exporters in the old-economy sector would still feel the pinch from falling raw material prices in the agricultural and industrial sectors, but the high-tech sector would perform better on the back of peak-season effects, which supported the nation’s overall exports, she said.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) forecast that exports last month would increase 1.2 percent from a year earlier, but Singapore-based DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) projected a 2.2 percent decline amid global trade disputes.
The Ministry of Finance is to report last month’s trade data today.
The ministry last month forecast exports for last month would show growth of between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent from a year earlier.
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