The manufacturing industry’s business climate monitor in October flashed “yellow-blue” for a fourth consecutive month, indicating sluggishness, as the operating environment and demand picked up, but selling prices and input budget dropped further, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
The composite index compiled by the Taipei-based think tank gained 0.76 points to 11.59, indicating listless manufacturing activity, as inventory adjustments lingered due to weak end-market demand.
TIER uses five levels to capture the industry’s cyclical movements, with “red” indicating a boom, “green” suggesting steady growth and “blue” signifying a downturn.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Yellow-blue indicates a tepid state and yellow-red a pickup in growth momentum.
Manufacturers that reported a decline in business eased from 40.87 percent in September to 30.36 percent in October, while firms that experienced a slowdown dropped from 50.22 percent to 41.92 percent, the monthly survey found.
Companies whose business remained steady increased from 7.87 percent to 26.79 percent, while firms that reported an increase slid from 1.04 percent to 0.93 percent, it said, adding that none saw a boom.
Electronics companies said that business was steady, as robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services lifted the suppliers of servers and graphic cards by double-digit percentage points, TIER said.
That helped offset continued inventory corrections at chipmakers and optical device vendors, it said.
The AI bonus underpinned the uptick in subindices of operating conditions, demand and costs, while sticky global inflation and restrictive monetary policies continued to weigh on other subindices, such as selling prices and input spending, the institute said.
Suppliers of transportation tools and auto parts also said that business was steady, backed by healthy auto sales in Taiwan, it said.
Furthermore, a growing number of Taiwanese firms are taking part in the global supply chains of electric vehicles (EVs) and benefited from increasing EV demand in China and the US, TIER said.
Textile and paper product makers remained mired in a recession, as a global slowdown curtailed demand and rivals from China cut prices to win customers, the institute said.
The Israel-Hamas war boosted international oil prices and benefitted local petrochemical product makers, lifting their business climate gauge from blue to yellow-blue.
Base metal suppliers floundered due to soft restocking demand from downstream customers, stopping them from buying input materials, the institute said.
Metal product vendors fared better, thanks to demand from consumer electronics gadgets ahead of the holiday season, it 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