The central bank said yesterday that it has upgraded its forecast of Taiwan’s GDP growth for this year to 3.82 percent, with the export-oriented economy expected to benefit from robust global demand for emerging technologies.
The upgrade was announced after the central bank wrapped up its quarterly policymaking meeting, raising this year's GDP growth from the previous estimate of 3.77 percent made in June.
The revised forecast came closer to an estimate by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) last month, which forecast GDP would grow 3.9 percent this year.
Photo: CNA
In addition to a strong export performance, the local economy is also boosted by an increase in private investment and private consumption, the central bank said.
However, due to a relatively high comparison base last year, the economy would grow 1.99 percent in the second half of this year after a 5.83 percent increase in the first half, it said.
The central bank also raised its forecast for consumer price index (CPI) growth from 2.12 percent in June to 2.16 percent, while it lowered its forecast for growth in core CPI, which excludes fruit, vegetables and energy to 1.94 percent, below the 2 percent alert set by the bank.
Since June, bad weather has adversely impacted agricultural supplies and pushed up the price of fruit and vegetables so the central bank raised its CPI growth forecast, but core CPI growth will continue its downtrend, with fruit and vegetables excluded, it said.
For next year, the central bank said exports and private investment are expected to continue to grow and with momentum in private consumption on the rise, the economy is expected to grow steadily at 3.08 percent.
In the policymaking meeting, the central bank also decided to leave its key interest rates unchanged for the second consecutive quarter despite a 50 basis point cut by the US Federal Reserve overnight.
After the decision, the discount rate remains at 2 percent which is still the highest in 15 years, with the rate on accommodation with collateral at 2.375 percent, and the rate on accommodations without collateral at 4.250 percent.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS