The consumer confidence index (CCI) this month shed 0.78 points to 66.73, with all six components weakening in line with a prevalent conservative sentiment, a survey released by National Central University said.
Though the retreat is small, poor exports pose a threat that would take a toll on the job market and private consumption, said Dachrahn Wu (吳大任), director of the university’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development, which conducted the survey.
Taiwan does not have much to do to reverse exports, which depend largely on when the US Federal Reserve would end its monetary tightening policy and allow global consumers to regain interest in technology products, Wu said.
Photo: CNA
The subindex on buying interest of durable goods, mainly real estate, recorded the biggest drop of 1.2 points to 110.2, the monthly survey showed.
The survey was conducted by interviewing 2,994 adults on the telephone from Sept. 17 to Wednesday last week.
Confidence readings of 100 or more suggest optimism and scores below the threshold indicate pessimism. According to the survey, interest in durable goods stayed strong despite a mild decline.
Taiwan’s private consumption has proved resilient, like the rest of the world in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, but the trend might not last long if exports remain weak, Wu said.
The government’s recent introduction of low interest rates of 1.775 percent for first-home purchases injected a vigor to the local property market, the survey showed.
Wu said that the measure on consumer price outlook edged down 0.9 points to 24.9, with most people expecting continued price hikes ahead.
Wu said that he is not particularly worried about inflationary pressures that have subsided significantly and it would return to the central bank’s 2 percent target next year.
The gauges on household incomes and stock investment dropped 0.75 points and 0.6 points to 74.95 and 44.9 respectively, as artificial intelligence interest cooled and related stocks went through drastic price corrections.
Public confidence on the nation’s economy in six months softened 0.75 points to 80, bucking the government’s projection for an economic recovery from next month onward.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘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.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS