Taiwan’s business climate monitor last month flashed “green” for a fourth straight month, indicating steady growth, although the economy lost further momentum, the National Development Council said yesterday.
The total score of the nine constituent readings lost one point, dropping to 27 due to weakening industrial production and money supply data, the council said.
“The pace of slowdown became more evident [last month], but it is premature to interpret the trend as an economic turnaround,” council research director Wu Ming-huei (吳明蕙) said.
Photo: CNA
The council uses a five-color system to indicate the state of the nation’s economy, with “green” meaning steady growth, “red” suggesting a boom and “blue” signaling a recession. Dual colors indicate a shift to a stronger or weaker state.
International research bodies have in the past month trimmed their forecast for global GDP growth, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, inflation and monetary tightening, Wu said.
Rising energy and commodity costs, as well as other financial burdens, have squeezed consumer spending for nonessential items and caused local manufacturers to become increasingly conservative about their business outlook, she said.
The index of leading indicators, which seeks to predict the economic situation in the coming six months, fell 1.27 percent to 97.26, the council said, as almost all sub-indices posted negative cyclical movements except the reading on semiconductor equipment imports.
The index of coincident indicators, which reflects the current economic situation, lost 0.76 percent to 99.69, as all sub-indices declined from one month earlier, it said.
There is little Taiwan can do to reverse unfavorable external developments, but the government has introduced new stimulus measures to shore up domestic demand and ease inflationary pressures, Wu said.
Against that backdrop, financial markets might become increasingly volatile, but the business climate for service providers might improve soon on a stabilizing COVID-19 situation, she added.
There is a high chance that the climate monitor will continue to flash “green” throughout the second half of this year, she said.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS