The government’s business climate monitor remained “yellow-red” in January, suggesting the nation’s economy was still strong, although it slightly lost momentum, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday.
The total score of all constituent readings was 36, down 2 points from a month earlier, as the TAIEX and business confidence softened a bit, the council said.
The local bourse swung wildly in January amid heightened geopolitical tensions and unease over interest rate hikes by major global central banks, NDC research director Wu Ming-huei (吳明蕙) said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
The council uses a five-color system to depict the nation’s economic state, with “green” indicating steady growth, “red” suggesting a boom and “blue” signaling a recession. Dual colors indicate a shift to a stronger or weaker state.
The decline in points should not be seen as signaling an economic turnaround, because Taiwan’s economy has plateaued, Wu said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far had little impact on Taiwan, as the nation has little trade with either country, Wu said, adding that the fallout would likely be limited to the financial sector, as global expectations of supply disruptions have boosted the prices of oil and grain.
Russia is a major producer of crude oil and grain.
Wu cited robust exports, a strong local currency and general pay hikes as evidence that Taiwan’s economy has held firm.
The index of leading indicators, which is used to predict the economic situation in the coming six months, shrank 0.06 percent from a month earlier to 102.08, the council said.
The sub-indices on export orders and payrolls in the industrial and service sectors increased, while the remaining measures all declined, it said.
The index of coincident indicators, which reflects the current economic state, expanded 0.32 percent to 103.16, as utility consumption picked up and wholesale, retail and restaurant revenues improved, it said.
In related news, the consumer confidence index last month shed 0.48 points to 73.19, a National Central University survey showed.
People became more confident about job hunting, the economic outlook and household income, tipping the sub-indices up to 65.3, 77.9 and 90 respectively, the university said.
However, they were less satisfied with consumer prices, stock investments and purchases of durable goods, driving the readings down to 30.45, 49.7 and 125.8 respectively, it said.
Confidence values of 100 or more indicate optimism, while values lower than the threshold suggest pessimism.
The university polled 2,813 people by telephone from Feb. 18 to 21.
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