Industrial production in Taiwan increased 2.15 percent year-on-year last month, ending two consecutive months of annual declines, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Output from the manufacturing sector, which contributes more than 90 percent of industrial production, grew 2.05 percent year-on-year on the back of Taiwanese firms moving back to the nation, the ministry said.
The electronic components industry posted a 9.18 percent increase in output thanks to rising integrated circuit production, it said.
“Companies are expanding their production capacity [of integrated circuits] in Taiwan and multiplying advanced production lines due to new applications ranging from 5G technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) to high-speed computing,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Wang Shu-chuan (王淑娟) told a news conference in Taipei.
Wang also pointed to surging production in the computer, electronic goods and optical components industry, which soared 29.08 percent last month, the 14th consecutive month of double-digit annual growth.
“We have witnessed a significant increase in the production of laptops, servers, and networking and communications devices, while optical components makers are also boosting production in light of rising market demand,” Wang said, adding that the upward trend is expected to continue this month.
“Taiwanese companies are increasingly choosing to locate their most valuable production at home... We believe this would help boost production in the domestic manufacturing sector next year,” she said.
Due to a poor performance in the first half of this year, production in the manufacturing sector is expected to decline by up to 0.4 percent or increase by 1 percent for the whole of the year, the ministry said.
The chemical materials industry posted a 7.13 percent year-on-year decline in production last month, a result of falling international crude oil prices and annual maintenance of manufacturing facilities, the ministry said.
With global steel prices limping, production in the base metal industry fell 11.31 percent year-on-year last month, while a 20.95 percent fall in production in the machinery equipment industry last month is linked to firms cutting investments amid a global economic slowdown, it said.
“However, we expect things to improve next year as more investments materialize for Taiwanese companies,” Wang said, citing the “phase one” trade agreement between the US and China, which is expected to boost traditional industries as global markets stabilize.
In the first 11 months of this year, overall industrial production declined 0.87 percent from the same period last year, driven by a 0.97 percent decrease in manufacturing sector output, the ministry said.
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