Business sentiment improved last month among local manufacturers and service providers, but property developers turned slightly cautious after policymakers voiced concern about housing price hikes, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The sentiment gauge for the manufacturing industry was 103.11, gaining for the seventh straight month to its highest level since August 2014, as demand for electronics remained strong, even though some products have probably plateaued, the Taipei-based think tank said.
“The manufacturing industry made a significant contribution to the nation’s economic growth this year, especially suppliers of semiconductors, as well as information and communication technology products,” TIER president Chang Chien-yi (張建一) said.
The business upturn, initially limited to tech firms, this quarter became broad-based after demand for machinery equipment, base metals, plastics and other non-technology products started to pick up, Chang said.
That explained why industrial production last month grew 7.84 percent year-on-year, while export orders jumped 12 percent to a record high, he said.
Looking forward, 32 percent of manufacturers are upbeat about their business prospects in the coming six months, up 6.6 percentage points from one month earlier, the monthly survey showed.
Firms with a cautious outlook dropped 1.7 percentage points to 16.7 percent, mostly printing businesses or garment and leather product makers, it said.
Chang said that the global business landscape is in a state of darkness before dawn and would soon brighten up after rapid and wide-spread COVID-19 vaccinations.
The confidence reading for service providers edged up 0.02 percentage points to 96.84, as sectors hold different views, the survey showed.
Most shipping companies, logistics firms and stock brokerages are upbeat, but restaurants and telecoms have dim views, it showed.
Shipping and logistics firms have benefited during the Christmas holiday season, while securities companies have experienced a boost from global monetary easing that fueled liquidity-driven rallies across global bourses, the survey showed.
Restaurants, on the other hand, are taking a hit from major local companies canceling traditional year-end feasts to help curb COVID-19 infection risks, it showed.
The sentiment measure for civil engineering and real-estate companies shed 2.22 percentage points to 109.23, ending two months of gains, the survey showed.
Government agencies last month revived talks of credit control measures to rein in property price hikes and earlier this month they were implemented, TIER said.
Fifty-five percent of companies in the sector expect a business decline in the next six months, the survey showed.
TIER said that credit controls would help prevent land hoarding and housing price hikes, allowing the property market to maintain healthy growth.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained