More than 60 percent of local retail stores plan to expand their business scale this year as sales are likely to pick up further after a mild increase last year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, CBRE Taiwan said in a report on Friday.
Sixty-three percent of retail stores expressed their intention to revive expansion plans that ran aground last year because of the COVID-19 outbreak and 44 percent plan to bolster sales over the Internet, it said.
Retail sales last year edged up 0.2 percent to NT$3.86 trillion (US$136.22 billion), as the nation’s effective control of the virus made a quick recovery possible in the second quarter, CBRE analyst Man Chan (陳頌民) said in the report.
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Based on the firm’s survey of retail investment in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan’s investment interest is much healthier than the regional average at 49 percent, the report showed.
Still, 30 percent of local stores said they would put off expansion plans — lower than 39 percent elsewhere — according to the survey, whose respondents include restaurants, supermarkets, entertainment facilities, as well as cosmetics and fashion stores.
More than 50 percent of retail stores abandoned expansion plans after seeing their revenue shrink by a double-digit percentage at the height of the pandemic in April last year, Chan said.
However, many have become active again in searching for expansion sites, encouraged by a correction in rental fees and the nation’s healthy economic outlook, he said.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics on Saturday raised the nation’s economic growth forecast to 4.64 percent for this year, a new high since 2014, and predicted that private consumption would increase 3.74 percent, reversing a 2.37 percent decline last year.
Retailers would also seek to tap into e-commerce, as online retail sales last year totaled NT$341.8 billion, surging 19 percent from a year earlier, backed by a low-contact economy, while 77 percent of local eateries plan to improve food delivery offers in light of surging credit-card spending for food delivery services, CBRE analyst Ping Lee (李嘉玶) said in the report.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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