Commercial property deals totaled NT$28.7 billion (US$882.29 million) last quarter, slumping 37 percent year-on-year, as global economic uncertainty and lingering credit controls in Taiwan chilled the market, Colliers International Taiwan (高力國際) said yesterday.
“Unclear US tariff policies are driving manufacturers to reassess their global presence and production base locations, with the possibility of postponing expansion or investment plans,” Colliers Taiwan senior research director Eilleen Liang (梁儀盈) said.
Owner-occupiers underpinned commercial real-estate deals during the January-to-March period, as companies such as Uni-President Group (統一企業), Micron Taiwan (美光), ASMedia Technology Inc (祥碩科技) and Wendell Industrial Co (穩得) bought properties to bolster their operations, the company said.
Photo: CNA
Micron Taiwan has purchased its third property for self-occupancy since August last year, it said.
Demand for capacity expansion and workspace upgrades was a key driver of factory and industrial office transactions, explaining why firms from the electronics, integrated circuit design and semiconductor sectors purchased properties, the company said.
As a result, factories and logistics warehouses were the most sought-after, accounting for NT$12 billion of deals, followed by industrial offices at NT$9.2 billion, it said.
Meanwhile, investment-focused activity was quiet, with no transactions from domestic life insurance companies at all, it said, adding that financial regulators had lowered the minimum return.
As for land deals, major Taiwanese developers continued to acquire land in popular locations, especially in southern Taiwan, the company said.
Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) spent NT$13.6 billion to build up land stock in Kaohsiung, while JSL Group (甲山林) acquired land and old idle factories for development, it said.
Looking ahead, Colliers Taiwan said property investors should take time to re-evaluate their portfolios and bolster their resilience in dealing with market direction shifts.
As borrowing costs remain high, owner-occupiers would continue to dominate transactions of factories and industrial offices, the company said.
Companies would cautiously approach expansion plans and slow the decisionmaking process, which is unfavorable for property transactions, it said.
The central bank last month cut its forecast for the nation’s GDP growth to 3.05 percent for this year, and growing uncertainty linked to US tariffs might merit further revisions, the company said.
The US trade policy is rattling consumer and property market confidence across the world and would weigh on property investment in Taiwan, it said.
In related developments, construction loans last month stood at NT$3.43 trillion, or a 2.97 percent rise from a year earlier, marking the slowest advance since August last year, the central bank said yesterday.
The slowdown has to do with developers’ conservative attitude in dealing with the central bank’s credit controls, it added.
Likewise, house loans picked up from the lowest pace of 9.34 percent in nearly a year to NT$11.18 billion, as credit controls drove some buyers to the sidelines, it said.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce