The government would trim its GDP growth forecast of 3.76 percent for this year if exports disappoint, but the reading would stay above the 3 percent mark, National Development Council Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) told lawmakers yesterday.
Kung made the remarks as lawmakers raised concerns over the economy, inflation and monetary policy.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, which in August cut its growth forecast for this year to 3.76 percent, could revise it down again next month if exports fare weaker than expected, Kung said.
Photo: Screen grab from the Legislative Yuan television channel
Exports, the mainstay of Taiwan’s small and open economy, likely had slipped into contraction mode last month after squeezing a mild 2 percent gain in August, the Ministry of Finance has said.
Shipments of tech products slowed drastically in August, while those of non-tech products dipped into negative territory. The government is to release last month’s trade data tomorrow.
Kung voiced confidence that GDP growth would exceed 3 percent this year, but expressed reservations when asked if it would be larger than 3.5 percent.
Growth in the consumer price index for last month is forecast to remain above 2 percent, but is likely to be weaker than August’s growth of 2.66 percent due to a drop in international oil prices, he said.
However, it would be difficult for world energy prices to slump given lingering supply issues, Kung said, adding that while oil prices have sagged, natural gas prices remain high amid the war in Ukraine.
Central banks in advanced nations would reconsider the wisdom of drastic tightening to curb inflation after the UN on Monday warned that the monetary policies of wealthy nations could spark a global economic downturn, Kung said.
Lawmakers from across party lines expressed unease that capital flight would persist, and hurt the local currency and share prices given Taiwan’s widening interest rate gap with major economies.
The global economy would slow from a forecast 2.5 percent growth this year to 2.2 percent next year, a slowdown that would leave global GDP well below its pre-COVID-19 pandemic norm and cost the world economy about US$17 trillion, or 20 percent of the world income, if major central banks press ahead with steep rate hikes, the UN said.
Foreign funds would shift their focus back to economic fundamentals and value local shares again after making moves to reflect global monetary tightening, Kung said.
The minister voiced reservations about suggestions to distribute tax surpluses to stimulate private consumption, saying that the public would most likely save instead of spend the money.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS