A majority of German companies in Taiwan expect their business to pick up in the next 12 months and none of them expect their operations to soften, a global survey by the German Chambers of Commerce Abroad (AHK) showed yesterday.
The AHK conducted the poll via its 140 branches in 92 countries from March 17 to April 9. The results reaffirmed those of a confidence survey conducted in February by the German Trade Office Taipei.
The AHK poll found that 62.8 percent of German companies in Taiwan said they expect their business to improve in the coming 12 months, while none had a grim outlook.
The survey found that 44.2 percent of respondents plan to increase their workforce in Taiwan, while none of them intend to reduce headcounts.
Asked about Taiwan’s economic outlook over the next 12 months, the companies were more optimistic than the February survey, with 74.5 percent saying the economy would gain significant momentum.
That is 11.2 percentage points higher from the previous survey, the office said.
Despite the rosy sentiment, respondents in the AHK survey identified some challenges ahead, led by concerns over a drop in demand at 48.8 percent, trade barriers at 34.9 percent and foreign-exchange volatility at 25.6 percent, it said.
Several Taiwanese firms have sounded the alarm about potential overbooking by global customers to ensure supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenon that could be augmenting component and material shortages, as well as shipping bottlenecks.
When asked about the effects of the pandemic on their business operations, 68.3 percent named travel restrictions as the top headache, 26.7 percentage points higher than the previous survey, the office said, adding that travel freedom is important for maintaining and expanding business relations.
Supply chain disruptions ranked as the No. 2 problem at 51.2 percent, followed by cancelations of trade fairs and events at 36.6 percent, the survey found.
Regardless, 32.6 percent of the firms plan to increase investment in Taiwan, while only 2.3 percent plan to reduce investment, it said.
The survey found that 41.5 percent of respondents expect Taiwan’s economy to return to normal in the second half of this year, while 22 percent said it could happen in the first half.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
RSS