Export orders rose 21.4 percent year-on-year to US$55.3 billion last month, marking the best July figure ever, statistics from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday showed.
Last month’s figure beat the expectations of the ministry, which predicted another robust annual growth this month.
Export orders are forecast to reach US$55 billion to US$56.5 billion this month, up 20.9 percent to 24.2 percent on an annual basis, the ministry said.
Last month also represented the 17th month of consecutive annual growth for orders. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for Taiwanese tech products has boomed due to work-from-home and distance-learning trends.
The demand for electronics has not weakened, and has been complemented by a recovery in demand among traditional sectors, such as chemicals, basic metals and plastic products, ministry data showed.
“With global recovery strengthening, we are seeing strong demand for both high-tech and traditional sectors,” Department of Statistics Director Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲) told a videoconference.
Orders for electronics and information and communications technology products grew 22.3 and 4.4 percent respectively, while orders for basic metals jumped 64.7 percent year-on-year, ministry data showed.
Orders for chemical products surged 42.3 percent and those for plastic products soared 44 percent, the data showed.
Despite rapidly increasing vaccination rates in major economies such as the US and the EU, a COVID-19 resurgence due to the spread of the Delta variant, especially in Southeast Asia, is a potential cause for concern for Taiwanese manufacturers.
In the past three months, 240,000 new cases were confirmed in Vietnam alone.
“Of the 98 companies with manufacturing facilities in the affected regions that answered our survey, 33 had to temporarily suspend taking orders,” Huang said.
“However, the overall number affected is still small and many companies have the ability to transfer orders to their Chinese or other plants,” she said.
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