The manufacturing industry saw its growth accelerate in January from a stable state in the previous month, with an index gauging the sector’s health at “yellow-red” for the first time since September 2010, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The think tank attributed the upward trend to a gradual recovery around the world — as an increasing number of countries have launched programs to vaccinate their residents against COVID-19 — and to the booming stay-at-home economy, which has increased demand for electronics.
The manufacturing sector has also benefited as businesses increased inventories prior to the Lunar New Year holiday.
Photo: CNA
Outputs from traditional industries were also robust, thanks to strong consumption and further increasing demand for raw materials, the institution said.
As a result, the composite index for the local manufacturing sector in January rose to 16.79 points — the first “yellow-red” indicator in 10 years — from 13.43 in December last year, TIER data showed.
The institute uses a five-color system to indicate economic activity, with red signaling overheating, yellow-red showing rapid growth, green representing stable growth, yellow-blue sluggish growth and blue reflecting a contraction.
Within manufacturing, economic activity continued strongly — with the indicator at “red” — in the information sector, and the electronic parts and components sector.
“Overall, the domestic manufacturing sector remains set to enjoy optimistic prospects,” the institute said in a news release yesterday.
Looking ahead, the institute said that the COVID-19 pandemic and unstable trade relations between the US and China would continue to challenge the global economy.
Nevertheless, continuous expansion in 5G, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, increasing demand in the stay-at-home economy and advanced production techniques in the semiconductor sector are expected to foster growth of the electronics and information sectors, the institute added.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS