Exports could post a year-on-year decline for the first half of the year because of the higher comparison basis recorded last year and lower demand from major export markets in the wake of a fragile global economy, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Outbound shipments totaled US$25.54 billion last month, down 6.4 percent year-on-year and 3 percent from last month, the ministry said in a report.
Exports to China and Hong Kong contracted 11.6 percent year-on-year to US$9.86 billion following slower economic activity, with exports of machines, metals, plastics and chemicals declining for a second consecutive month, the report said.
Meanwhile, exports to the US fell 16.3 percent from the previous year to US$27.06 billion as a result of lower exports of information and communication technology, products, while outbound shipments to Japan were down 10.6 percent at US$1.46 billion, ministry data showed.
However, exports to Europe and the six main ASEAN members both rebounded last month, with annual growth standing at 3.5 percent and 4.4 percent respectively.
Nine of the nation’s 10 major export sectors posted year-on-year declines last month, while exports of transportation equipment rose 17.9 percent to US$1.01 billion from a year ago, its highest ever level, data showed.
Donna Kwok (郭浩庄), an economist for Greater China at HSBC Asia, said in a note yesterday that she expected demand from the West, especially Europe, to constrain export growth for a while longer.
Meanwhile, the steady economic slowdown from the gradual impact of global energy price increases in the first quarter of this year could encourage the central bank to keep interest rates unchanged at least until the fourth quarter, Kwok said.
For the first four months of this year exports totaled US$96.37 billion, down 4.7 percent from a year earlier, the worst performance among the four Asian Tigers, ministry statistics showed.
“Although the global economy has shown signs of improvement, the competition between countries has also been tougher, making it harder for some exports from Taiwan,” Lin said.
Exports to South Korea inched up 0.9 percent year-on-year in the first four months, with growth in exports to Singapore and Hong Kong standing at 6.2 percent and minus 0.3 percent respectively in the first three months, according to ministry statistics.
The nation’s imports, or inbound shipments, totaled US$24.86 billion last month, up 3 percent year-on-year and 3.6 percent from last month, spearheaded by higher prices for imported crude petroleum, the ministry said.
As a result of falling exports and rising imports, the trade surplus fell to US$690 million, down 76.6 percent year-on-year and 70.8 percent from the previous month, the data showed.
However, imports of capital equipment fell 1.4 percent from a year ago to US$3.1 billion last month, with machine imports posting its 10th consecutive monthly fall, indicating continued weakness in private investment.
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of
RSS