Export orders improved last month from the previous month, boosted by rush orders from China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Export orders totaled US$23.94 billion last month, up 18.99 percent from the previous month but down 24.29 percent year-on-year. In the first three months of the year, orders dropped 29.69 percent to US$61.73 billion from last year, the ministry’s latest data showed.
“We saw the steepest decline in January this year, then in February export orders started to pick up because of rush orders from China. And now in March, we are seeing more stability,” Statistics Department Director Huang Ji-shih (黃吉實) said.
The outlook for export orders is mixed, with expectations for shipments this month split evenly among the nation’s leading companies, Huang said.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), head economist at Citigroup Taiwan Inc, was less optimistic than Huang about the overall economic outlook.
“The figures for March’s export orders do look better than February’s, but remember, we’re coming from a very steep drop, so there is still plenty of room for increase before we can use the term recovery,” Cheng said.
“What matters now is the speed with which the data for export orders improves, and so far it has exceeded Citi’s previous estimates. We are waiting for next week’s leading indicators; if all of them are positive then we can reasonably expect to have a pretty good second quarter,” he said.
Citi predicted contractions of 8.2 percent and 6 percent for first and second-quarter GDP growth, respectively.
Cheng indicated there was a possibility of raising estimates for second-quarter GDP next week.
The nation’s two largest export destinations traded places last month, with China (including Hong Kong) leading the US for the first time since October.
Chinese orders totaled US$6.14 billion, compared with US$5.61 billion in orders from the US.
However, orders from China and the US fell 29.38 percent and 23.43 percent respectively from a year earlier.
At the same time, they climbed 27.89 percent and 14.60 percent respectively month-on-month, ministry statistics showed.
Orders from Europe and Japan last month saw increases of 13.79 percent and 18.22 percent from February to US$4.50 billion and US$2.06 billion respectively.
Among major export categories, orders for digital products fell 16.6 percent year-on-year to US$5.95 billion, telecoms products decreased 18.56 percent to US$5.84 billion and precision instruments dropped 37.68 percent to US$1.73 billion.
Meanwhile, the ministry said that industrial output had fared better last month, increasing 20.25 from the previous month.
But output still declined 26.03 percent year-on-year, it said.
The ministry revised February’s industrial output data to a decline of 27.23 percent year-on-year.
“As export orders pick up not just from China but from the US and Australia, industrial output will follow suit,” Cheng said.
Global economic conditions would likely be back on track sometime in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year, he said.
Taiwan would remain in the same international network for carrying out cross-border payments and would not be marginalized on the world stage, despite jostling among international powers, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said yesterday. Yang made the remarks during a speech at an annual event organized by Financial Information Service Co (財金資訊), which oversees Taiwan’s banking, payment and settlement systems. “The US dollar will remain the world’s major cross-border payment tool, given its high liquidity, legality and safe-haven status,” Yang said. Russia is pushing for a new cross-border payment system and highlighted the issue during a BRICS summit in October. The existing system
Convenience store operator Lawson Inc has registered trademarks in Taiwan, sparking rumors that the Japanese chain is to enter the local market. The company on Aug. 30 filed trademarks for the names Lawson and Lawson Station, according to publicly available information from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Intellectual Property Office. The product categories on the application include some of Lawson’s top-selling items for use in the convenience store market. The discovery has led to speculation online that the popular Japanese chain is to enter the Taiwanese market. However, some pointed out that it might be a preemptive application to avoid others from co-opting the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to grow its revenue by about 25 percent to a new record high next year, driven by robust demand for advanced technologies used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications and crypto mining, International Data Corp (IDC) said yesterday. That would see TSMC secure a 67 percent share of the world’s foundry market next year, from 64 percent this year, IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) predicted. In the broader foundry definition, TSMC would see its market share rise to 36 percent next year from 33 percent this year, he said. To address concerns
PROTECTIONISM: The tariffs would go into effect on Jan. 1 and are meant to protect the US’ clean energy sector from unfair Chinese practices, the US trade chief said US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to raise tariffs on solar wafers, polysilicon and some tungsten products from China to protect US clean energy businesses. The notice from the Office of US Trade Representative (USTR) said tariffs on Chinese-made solar wafers and polysilicon would rise to 50 percent from 25 percent and duties on certain tungsten products would increase from zero to 25 percent, effective on Jan. 1, following a review of Chinese trade practices under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974. The decision followed a public comment period after the USTR said in September that it was considering
RSS