The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month climbed to 61.2, the fastest advance since March 2017, as all sectors reported an upturn in business on the back of holiday demand and optimism over COVID-19 vaccines, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The latest PMI data marked a fifth consecutive month of gains, helped by customers in various parts of the world frontloading orders as the COVID-19 pandemic created shipping difficulties, the Taipei-based think tank said.
“Business in sectors previously hit by the pandemic returned to normal, while growth momentum for electronics suppliers accelerated further,” CIER president Chang Chuang-chang (張傳章) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
PMI figures seek to show the health of the manufacturing industry, with scores above 50 indicating expansion and values below indicating contraction.
Customers were generally upbeat about building inventories after the US presidential election was settled and several drug companies had positive results in their COVID-19 vaccine trials, Chang said.
Some firms, fearing shipping delays after much of Europe and the US introduced partial lockdowns to rein in COVID-19 transmission rates, stockpiled supplies well ahead of the holiday season, Chang said, adding that the annual Singles’ Day shopping blitz also lent support.
The sub-index on new business orders stood at 64.8, dropping 1.1 points from October, while the gauge on industrial production rose 2.8 points to 66.5, the survey showed.
Supply Management Institute in Taiwan (中華採購與供應管理協會) executive director Steve Lai (賴樹鑫) said that the situation is headed toward overheating, or when PMI scores are more than 60 points.
CIER researcher Chen Shin-hui (陳馨蕙) said that concerns over shipping delays contributed to the boom, after shipping companies reconfigured routes to deal with the pandemic.
After the recovery arrived faster than expected, local companies had to vie for containers to deliver their products, Chen said.
The reading on delivery times added 4.1 points from October to 63.5, the survey showed.
The measure on raw material prices gained 6.9 points to 72.5, while the sub-index on unfinished orders added 2.9 points to 59.6, it showed.
Companies hold optimistic outlooks, with the six-month business outlook rising 5.1 points to 63.4, CIER said.
The non-manufacturing index rose 0.4 points to 53.8 — its sixth consecutive month of expansion — although restaurants and hotels continued to struggle, it said.
The situation is likely to improve, as all service-oriented sectors expect business to expand over the next six months, it added.
Bankers in Hong Kong skipped the summer break as an artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled rush for capital sent share sales to a record, defying a bruising selloff in the city’s stocks. Initial public offerings (IPOs), placements and block trades raised US$47.5 billion in July to last month, the biggest haul ever for the period, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That pushed fundraising this year above US$92 billion and within reach of the US$112.5 billion record set in 2021. AI has been at the heart of Hong Kong’s deal revival, but this summer brought a new level of intensity. Chinese companies raised ever-larger sums
SILICON ISLAND: When asked about geopolitical tensions, Lisa Su said that ‘Taiwan is absolutely critical to the semiconductor supply chain, and very, very critical for AMD’ Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) yesterday said the company plans to “substantially” increase manufacturing capacity next year through its Taiwanese supply chain, particularly with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related processors continues to outstrip supply. “It is a very exciting time right now for all kinds of compute, and especially on the CPU [central processing unit] side,” Su said during a visit to Taiwan. “The overall market has increased a lot in 2026, and so we have also increased our own supply and capacity in 2026, but I can
INDUSTRY STANDARD: Most global semiconductor companies have tied employee bonuses directly to corporate profits, the union said, urging Micron to do the same Micron Memory Taiwan Co’s (台灣美光) Taoyuan union secured strike authorization yesterday after a six-day vote, ramping up pressure on management to build a reasonable profit-sharing mechanism. Before the strike, the Taoyuan union “encourages” members to join a protest in Taipei on Oct. 19, union chairman Jerry Lin (林哲瑞) told a news conference in Taipei. The union did not rule out staging a snap strike, Lin said. The union has 2,258 registered members, with 88.3 percent backing the strike, he said. The vote comes as Micron’s board of directors is meeting today and tomorrow in the US. The union expects the board to respond
Elon Musk said his business empire would build and operate Terafab independently, quashing speculation about industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) swooping in to run his ambitious chipmaking venture. Based in Texas, the Terafab project is Musk’s effort to break into the business of fabricating chips, in service of his companies Tesla Inc and SpaceXAI. While Musk had said that he was in discussions with TSMC, the trillionaire clarified in an X post yesterday that the only matter under consideration is for TSMC potentially leasing some part of the planned site and would not involve any operational role. “Maybe TSMC
RSS