The nation’s power consumption last month dropped 13.38 percent from a year earlier, as demand from the manufacturing and service sectors weakened amid an economic slowdown abroad and the Lunar New Year holiday at home, the Taiwan Research Institute (TRI, 台灣綜合研究院) said yesterday.
The New Taipei City-based institute uses the electricity prosperity index to gauge the health of the nation’s industrial and service sectors.
It was the first double-digit percentage drop in three years, as local manufacturers were affected by a slow sales season and fewer working days, the TRI said.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Global inflation and monetary tightening by central banks also played a role, it said.
Export orders — a gauge of how exports would perform in one to three months — contracted 19.3 percent from a year earlier to US$47.51 billion, as consumers worldwide reduced spending on non-essential items, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Monday.
Power consumption among local manufacturers slumped 14.82 percent, as companies idled capacity and adjusted inventory to cope with tepid end-market demand, the institute said yesterday.
The situation was more serious for makers of chemical, plastic and rubber products, as well as machinery equipment, which saw business retreat more than 20 percent, compared with a 10 percent drop for electronic components vendors, it said.
High-voltage energy use fell 12.57 percent, as consumption dropped 13.92 in the manufacturing sector and 5.39 percent in the service sector, it added.
While tourism and hospitality businesses experienced a rapid recovery amid easing COVID-19 restrictions, exporters, as well as shipping, logistics and warehousing service operators, struggled, the TRI said.
The institute said GDP last month likely shrank 0.9 percent, worsening from a 0.8 percent decline in the fourth quarter of last year.
It revised down its GDP growth forecast for last year to 2.4 percent, compared with the 2.43 percent expansion predicted on Jan. 18 by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
The statistics agency is today to unveil its latest GDP projections for the fourth quarter and this year.
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