Taiwan’s exports rose 21.8 percent from a year earlier to US$24.37 billion last month on demand from China, the US and Europe ahead of Christmas and the Lunar New Year, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
It was the third-highest value ever, with exports to Europe increasing 27.8 percent on a yearly basis to a new record of US$2.95 billion despite lingering debt problems there, the report said.
For the first 11 months, exports increased 36.6 percent to US$250.81 billion and are set to exceed the US$272.7 billion level for the whole of this year that the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) forecast last month, Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department, said at a news conference.
PHOTO: AFP
“Exports this quarter will outperform the third quarter as demand for consumer electronics remains strong amid the region’s fast-growing economies,” Lin said.
Shipments of electronics gained 16.4 percent yearly to US$6.75 billion last month, while those of base metals and related products increased 25.9 percent to NT$2.27 billion, the report showed.
Imports jumped 33.8 percent year-on-year to US$23.96 billion last month with capital goods contributing US$4.4 billion, suggesting active expansions on the part of the private sector, Lin said.
The latest trade figures translated into a trade surplus of US$410 million, the lowest since the global financial crisis in 2008, due to the import of three aircraft, Lin said, dismissing links with foreign exchange rates.
The New Taiwan dollar weakened NT$0.22 against the US currency last month from October, she said.
Shipments to China including Hong Kong picked up 18.2 percent yearly to US$9.83 billion last month, while exports to the US increased 32.1 percent to US$2.96 billion, the report said.
Exports to Southeast Asian countries gained 15.8 percent to US$3.53 billion last month, while those to Japan grew 12.3 percent to US$1.57 billion, the report said.
The rosy trade data is likely to encourage the central bank to hike interest rates in its quarterly board meeting later this month to cushion inflationary pressure, said Tony Phoo (符銘財), an economist at Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打銀行).
“The central bank will likely raise the interest rate by another 12.5 basis points as Taiwan’s real interest rate was in negative territory last month,” Phoo said.
The nation’s consumer price index rose 1.53 percent last month from a year earlier, DGBAS reported on Monday, while the one-year time deposit rate is currently 1.13 percent at Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行).
Donna Kwok (郭浩莊), an economist on Greater China at HSBC, however, said the central bank is likely to halt the interest normalization cycle this month with the NT dollar still under appreciation pressure.
“We expect the central bank to keep its policy rate frozen,” Kwok said in a note. “With the formation of new headwinds in Europe and the negative turn in the US labor market, the outlook for Taiwanese exports is gloomier than in September.”
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS