The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week.
The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020.
Photo: CNA
In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said the decline reflected a weakening Chinese economy caused by a fragile property home market and falling domestic demand.
The ministry said a fall in exports to China also came as the Chinese government intensified efforts to push for the “Made in China 2025” initiative to replace imported goods with those made domestically.
The reduction in exports last year was largely made up of petrochemical, base metal and machine tool suppliers due to a supply glut in the Chinese market, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s exports of traditional electronic components to China, such as printed-circuit boards and diodes, also declined last year compared with 2020, it said.
In contrast, sales of high-end integrated circuits and graphics processing unit (GPU) cards, which are used in artificial intelligence applications, increased over the same period.
As exports to China fall, Taiwan has forged closer ties with the US and ASEAN to diversify their markets and reduce dependence on China, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s exports to the US surged 120 percent last year compared with 2020, reaching US$111.4 billion, the ministry said.
The growth was primarily driven by computer electronics — including servers and GPU cards — which rose 640 percent, and semiconductors, which increased 360 percent in that period.
Exports to the US comprised 23.4 percent of Taiwan’s total last year, up from 14.6 percent in 2020, according to the ministry.
Exports to ASEAN made up 18.5 percent, up 3.1 percentage points from 15.4 percent in 2020, largely due to an increase in sales of computers and related products, as well as semiconductors, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
RSS