The US has topped long-time leader China as Taiwan’s main export market for four consecutive months due to a surge in demand for microchip products and artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Taiwan churns out the world’s most advanced silicon wafers necessary to power everything from electric vehicles and satellites to fighter jets, and increasingly to power AI technology.
For two decades, the nation’s top export market had been China, but data from the ministry for December last year showed that the US topped the list for the first time since August 2003.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan in December last year exported US$8.49 billion of products to the US, compared with US$8.28 billion to China, ministry data showed.
The trend continued through last month, when US exports increased 65 percent to US$9.11 billion, a 6 percent jump, while China received US$7.99 billion of goods, the data showed.
Those figures exclude Hong Kong, which holds its own status as a customs territory, but when it is combined with the mainland, China remains the top destination for Taiwanese goods.
An official in the trade division at the ministry attributed the data to the global “reorganization of electronics and ICT [information and communication technology] supply chains, and the popularity of the AI industry.”
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) came to power in 2016, she has been working to strengthen economic ties with the US, seeing Washington as a crucial partner as China grows increasingly aggressive.
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