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.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘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
RSS