Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 5.3 percent and 17.6 percent respectively, while sales in the wholesale sector remained weak, falling 5.7 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The retail sector recorded NT$377.8 billion (US$11.83 billion) in sales last month, up 1.6 percent from June, driven mainly by an annual increase of 15.8 percent in sales of vehicles and automotive components, as well as an 11.1 percent rise in department store sales, the ministry said.
In the first seven months of the year, retail sales totaled NT$2.61 trillion, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier, ministry data showed.
Photo: CNA
The ministry said it expects retail sales to grow between 1.5 percent and 4.5 percent annually to between NT$363.6 billion and NT$374.4 billion this month.
Sales in the food and beverage sector reached NT$89.1 billion last month, up 6.9 percent from the previous month, as more people dined out and consumed cold beverages during the summer, the ministry said.
In the first seven months of the year, food and beverage sales rose 24.9 percent year-on-year to NT$593 billion, while sales this month are projected to advance 13.5 percent to 16.5 percent to between NT$89.2 billion and NT$91.6 billion, it said.
As for the wholesale sector, sales fell for the ninth straight month to NT$977.7 billion last month, although they dropped at the slowest pace in five months, as robust demand for servers partially offset the sluggish electronics sector, the ministry said.
On a monthly basis, sales improved 1.3 percent, it added.
“The wholesale sector is expected to improve gradually, in line with the nation’s manufacturing sector,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Huang Wei-jie (黃偉傑) said.
Cumulative sales in the sector in the first seven months of this year fell 11.4 percent year-on-year to NT$6.59 trillion, while sales for this month are forecast to shrink at an annual rate of between 5.2 percent and 8.2 percent to between NT$953.3 and NT$984.4 billion, the ministry said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS