Taiwan’s exports last month soared 29.9 percent year-on-year to US$48.66 billion, the second-highest on record, thanks to front-loading demand for tech products used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing, after Washington announced a 90-day respite for its “reciprocal” tariffs, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Last month’s export momentum proved stronger than expected and is to continue this month, with an annual increase of 15 percent to 20 percent, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said.
“Front-loading demand and rush orders are evident across sectors,” Tsai said. “The 90-day pause prompted firms on the sidelines to actively build inventory.”
Photo: CNA
That could disrupt seasonality for technology products — with the first half of this year outperforming the second half in terms of sales, Tsai said.
Outbound shipments of information and communications technology products spiked 60.5 percent annually to US$18.83 billion last month, overtaking electronic components as the top driver, on the back of demand from AI infrastructure and big data centers, she said.
Shipments of electronic components, mainly chips, increased 26.8 percent to US$16.41 billion, consistent with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) expectations.
The company has said that it does not see customers canceling orders amid uncertainty related to US tariffs.
Front-loading also benefited exports of chemicals, base metals, optical products and machinery equipment, the ministry said, adding that last month, all major markets’ shipments — except Europe — recorded double-digit percentage growth.
Mexico saw a threefold increase, while Malaysia rapidly climbed to the fourth-largest export destination, after China, the US and Japan, Tsai said, adding that it was due to the ongoing global supply chain realignment.
Imports last month also expanded 33 percent year-on-year to US$41.16 billion, fueled by local tech firms’ purchases of capital equipment and the deepening of global division of labor in the tech supply chain, Tsai said.
That gave Taiwan a trade surplus of US$7.21 billion in the month, up 15 percent from a year earlier.
Tsai declined to comment on the effect of the New Taiwan dollar’s rapid appreciation on exports, saying that she cannot pass judgment on the issue based on customs data alone.
However, Tsai said she believed Taiwanese firms command the pricing power in areas where they maintain a strong global competitive edge.
With global cloud service providers’ AI infrastructure investments showing no signs of deceleration, Taiwan appears poised to maintain its export strength in the months ahead, she said.
In the first four months of this year, cumulative exports rose 20.6 percent to US$178.23 billion, while imports gained 20.4 percent to US$147.38 billion from a year earlier, ministry data showed.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
RSS