Business sentiment among local firms last month diverged as manufacturers expressed confidence concerning their outlook, but service providers and construction firms turned neutral with a conservative tendency, a survey published by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) found.
The sentiment gauge for the manufacturing industry was 101.27 last month, up 0.81 points from a revised 100.46 in September, increasing for six months in a row to the highest level since August 2018.
Manufacturers with positive views about business prospects increased 7.5 percentage points to 25.6 percent, while companies with a negative outlook dropped 3.6 percentage points to 21.3 percent, the monthly survey published yesterday showed.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Suppliers of chemical and steel products are more optimistic than their peers in other sectors, benefiting from infrastructure construction projects, the institute’s economic forecasting center director Gordon Sun (孫明德) said.
Most manufacturers have neutral views about business in coming months after European countries tightened social distancing and travel restrictions to rein in increasing numbers of COVID-19 infections, it said.
The current quarter is high season for technology products for which local firms supply critical components, but business has been undercut by China’s Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) inventory stockpiling ahead of an import ban imposed by the US that took effect on Sept. 15.
The sentiment reading for service providers last month fell 0.46 points to 96.8, ending six straight months of upturn, the institute said.
Restaurants and life insurance firms grew increasingly uncertain about the landscape ahead, it found, as large technology firms canceled year-end banquets to curb COVID-19 infection risks.
Hospitality providers expected corporate banquet demand to slump 30 percent this year from last year, although technology firms reported a boom in business from remote working and education, the institute said.
Meanwhile, border controls continue to weigh on hotels that depend heavily on foreign business travelers, it said.
The sentiment score for civil engineering firms, property developers and brokers slipped 0.02 points to 111.17, the survey found, after government agencies voiced concern about property price hikes.
More than 50 percent of builders turned from being sanguine to neutral after the Ministry of the Interior announced plans to crack down on speculation of presale projects and a central bank warning about loose land financing and mortgage operations, the institute said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission on Friday last week lent support, saying that it is to inspect local banks’ real-estate lending businesses.
Taiwan and China are to build more new high-volume semiconductor fabrication plants this year and next year than any other country, together contributing more than half of all new fabs in the world by constructing eight each, SEMI said in a quarterly report yesterday. Global chipmakers are to start building 19 new high-volume fabs by the end of this year and another 10 next year to meet accelerating demand for chips from the communications, computing, healthcare, online services and automotive sectors, SEMI, an association that represents the global semiconductor sector, said in its quarterly report. “Equipment spending for these 29 fabs is
Major PC vendors expect a shortage of key components to last another 12 months until the second quarter of next year, when PC demand wanes after two years of robust expansion, a UBS analyst said yesterday. Concern has risen among investors that PC demand could weaken as the US and European economies reopen from COVID-19 lockdowns and gradually return to in-person business activities. At the annual Taiwan Conference that began on Monday, UBS analysts said they had similar discussions with companies in PC supply chains, and the feedback from major PC vendors indicated that demand remained quite strong on the back of
MOVING ON UP: Taiwan improved in all four areas measured by the IMD, making its biggest leap, from 17th to sixth place, in economic performance Taiwan moved up three spots from last year to place eighth, its best performance since 2013, in the latest annual world competitiveness rankings, released yesterday by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). Innovation, digitalization, welfare benefits and social cohesion are critical to economic performance, with Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Singapore making up the top five on the list this year, the Switzerland-based institute said, after grading 64 countries and regions based on economic performance, infrastructure, and government and business efficiency. “Leading performers are characterized by varying degrees of investment in innovation, diversified economic activities and supportive public policy,” IMD
‘MATTER OF SURVIVAL’: Vice Premier Liu He is to lead the development of ‘third-generation’ chips, a field not yet dominated by any nation or company Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is renewing his years-long push to achieve technology self-sufficiency by tapping a top deputy to shepherd a key initiative aimed at helping domestic chipmakers overcome US sanctions. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴), Xi’s economic czar whose sprawling portfolio spans trade to finance and technology, has been tapped to spearhead the development of so-called “third-generation” chip development and capabilities, and is leading the formulation of a series of financial and policy supports for the technology, people with knowledge of the matter said. It is a nascent field that relies on newer materials and gear beyond traditional silicon,
RSS