Export orders declined 0.8 percent year-on-year last month to US$28.68 billion as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production, supply chains and logistics in China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
On a monthly basis, export orders contracted 18.8 percent from US$35.31 billion, ministry statistics showed.
The ministry said it expects the decline to accelerate this month.
Photo: Huang Pei-chun, Taipei Times
Orders for information and communications technology (ICT) products, one of Taiwan’s most important export categories, was most affected as orders fell 23.4 percent year-on-year to US$6.05 billion.
“More than 90 percent of ICT products, comprised of smartphones, laptops and servers, are manufactured in China, which makes them particularly vulnerable when the country deployed stringent anti-epidemic measures,” Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) said.
ICT product makers reacted swiftly by moving production back to Taiwan, Huang said.
“This holds true for all product categories, as manufacturers increasingly shift production back home to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus,” Huang said, adding that overall overseas production fell to 40.7 percent last month, hitting a 15-year low.
Meanwhile, export orders for electronics bounced back after a small contraction in January to surge 20.4 percent year-on-year to US$8.82 billion, due to growing demand for semiconductors.
“Upcoming 5G deployment boosted orders for foundry services, design and packaging of integrated circuits as well as memory products,” Huang said.
However, export orders for optoelectronics continued a downward spiral despite an increase in demand for optical lenses, as flat-panel prices struggle to recover.
With part of their production in China hindered, optoelectronics makers posted a 14.7 percent year-on-year decline to US$1.34 billion in orders last month, the data showed.
Orders for traditional manufactured goods, with the exception of petrochemicals, increased by between 1.4 percent and 14.3 percent on an annual basis last month due to a low comparison base.
“While this may seem to provide some respite for traditional manufacturers after incessant declines last year, this situation is unlikely to persist ... especially not for petrochemicals, rubber and plastic products,” Huang said, referring to the recent slump in oil prices.
As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, hitting Europe and the US, export orders are expected to continue to decline this month by between 3.2 percent and 9.3 percent on an annual basis to US$33.5 billion to US$35 billion.
“The virus outbreak in China mainly upset the supply end ... but now we might be facing disruptions on end markets,” Huang said, forecasting a more than US$2 billion decline in orders for ICT makers, which are expected to be the most affected.
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
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
Taiwan-based GlobalWafers Co., the world’s third largest silicon wafer supplier, on Wednesday opened a 12-inch silicon wafer plant in Novara, northern Italy - the country’s most advanced silicon wafer facility to date. The new plant, coded “Fab300,” was launched by GlobalWafers’ Italian subsidiary MEMC Electronics Materials S.p.A at a ceremony attended by Taiwan’s representative to Italy Vincent Tsai (蔡允中), MEMC President Marco Sciamanna and Novara Mayor Alessandro Canelli. GlobalWafers Chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said the investment marked a milestone in the company’s expansion in Europe, adding that the Novara plant will be powered entirely by renewable energy - a reflection of its
RSS