Nearly half of respondents pointed to new waves of COVID-19 outbreaks as the biggest risk for Taiwan’s economy next year, a survey released on Monday by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) showed.
The survey, which was conducted earlier this month among 18,666 respondents, found that 48.5 percent expected new waves of COVID-19 infections next year to hit the nation’s GDP growth.
According to the poll, 28.4 percent were concerned that escalating US-China trade tensions would affect Taiwan’s economy and 9.4 percent were worried that the reshaping of global supply chains would undercut companies’ profits.
The survey found that 34.3 percent of respondents expected global monetary and fiscal policies to have the biggest effect on Taiwan’s equity market next year, followed by the US stock market at 23.8 percent and stability in cross-strait relations with 20.3 percent, the survey showed.
About 35 percent of respondents expect the TAIEX to fall over the next six months, while 31.2 percent forecast the index to continue its rally, the survey found.
The results compared with 36.1 percent and 33.6 percent respectively who felt so a month earlier, Cathay Financial said.
Regarding the outlook of the job market, 44 percent of respondents said they expect the employment situation to worsen and 16.9 expected a raise in their salary over the next six months, compared with 47 percent and 15.8 percent respectively who felt so a month earlier, the survey showed.
As most consumers used their Triple Stimulus Vouchers in July or last month, consumers’ willingness to make big-ticket purchases or buy durable goods has weakened from one month earlier, Cathay Financial said.
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
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.
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
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