Taiwan’s industrial production last month rose 19.97 percent from the same month last year due to strong demand for electronic components used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The index printed 108.55 last month, up for the 10th straight month and an increase of 6.14 percent from a month earlier, the ministry said in a report.
The economic measure last year expanded 11.45 percent, emerging from two years of downturn in spite of an imbalanced recovery, it said.
Photo: CNA
The manufacturing industry outperformed other sectors, such as suppliers of electricity, water and chemical products, with an uptick of 20.79 percent, Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Huang Wei-jie (黃偉傑) said.
The growth would continue this month at a moderate pace of 3.9 percent, Huang said, citing a survey of firms, as most of them would halt operations over the Lunar New Year holiday.
Last month, chip suppliers’ output swelled 37.51 percent from a year earlier, while output at vendors of computers, electronics and optical devices soared 58.78 percent, Huang said, attributing the gains to spending by US technology giants to build AI capabilities.
By contrast, base metal and vehicle parts suppliers reported a retreat of 4.24 percent and 9.05 percent respectively as the market needed more time to digest a supply glut, Huang said.
For the final quarter of last year, local chipmakers achieved a 26.77 percent increase in industrial output, as Taiwan is home to suppliers of advanced chips used in latest-generation smartphones and cloud-based data centers, as well as chip packaging.
Chip production last year spiked 25.12 percent compared with 2023, higher than the average 19.52 percent gain for electronic components, the ministry said.
Local manufacturers of chemical and metal products failed to stage a comeback for the third consecutive year, while auto parts makers slipped into contraction, ending three years of growth, Huang said.
“China’s overproduction accounted for the decline in global orders and selling prices,” he said.
The US-China trade dispute and geopolitical tensions are adding uncertainty, although AI development would continue, which is favorable to local tech firms, the ministry said.
Industrial output for this month would slow compared with last month, when customers built up inventory ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, it said.
Only 6 percent of firms expected production to pick up, while 29.3 percent projected a decrease, it said, adding that 64.1 percent expected business to remain the same.
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