Taiwan’s business climate monitor stayed “green” for the fourth consecutive month last month, signaling steady economic momentum, despite widening disparities across industries, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday.
The composite index gained one point from July to 30, as stronger production and exports offset weakness in traditional sectors, which came under pressure from US tariffs and intensifying global competition, the council said.
The NDC uses a five-color system to illustrate economic conditions: “green” indicates stable growth, “red” reflects a boom and “blue” signals recession, while dual colors denote transition.
Photo: CNA
Of the nine components, stock prices and M1B money supply each added one point, buoyed by a market rebound, while the manufacturing sales index slipped by one point, as tariff impacts started to emerge, NDC Department of Economic Development Director Chen Mei-chu (陳美菊) said.
“The trend is expected to be sustainable, keeping the business climate measure in the ‘green’ range for the rest of the year,” Chen said.
The leading index, which projects economic conditions over the next six months, fell for a seventh straight month to 99.59, down 0.24 percent from July, the council said.
Weaker momentum in new construction, manufacturing business sentiment, export orders and net hiring weighed on the gauge, although money supply, stock prices and imports of semiconductor equipment improved, the NDC said.
The coincident index, which reflects the current state of the economy, edged up 0.26 percent to 106.52, advancing for the 27th straight month, supported by exports, electricity consumption and overtime hours, the council said.
However, retail, wholesale and restaurant revenues, industrial production, machinery imports and manufacturing sales all declined, it said.
Financial conditions brightened after US President Donald Trump pledged to exempt semiconductor firms with US investments from tariffs and the US Federal Reserve signaled willingness to cut interest rates to support the labor market, Chen said.
Trade and sales-related indicators showed resilience, but private consumption remained subdued in light of lackluster retail and restaurant turnover, she added.
A divergence is increasingly emerging between high-tech and traditional industries, she said.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled demand is propelling semiconductor and the information and communications technology industries, but traditional sectors are grappling with tariff headwinds, slower production and mounting furlough cases, Chen said.
Although the latest manufacturing index edged up, firms remain uneasy about US tariffs, she said.
Chen said that Taiwan’s economy should stay resilient through the end of the year, supported by robust AI demand and strong capacity utilization at major technology firms, but geopolitical tensions and trade risks warrant close monitoring.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS