Taiwan’s economy last quarter expanded by 3.97 percent from a year earlier, beating the government’s forecast by 0.76 percentage points, as exports proved stronger than expected, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The showing could boost economic growth to 4.1 percent for this year, the highest in three years and better than the 3.9 percent increase that the statistics agency had projected in August.
Exports of goods and services, the main growth driver, rose 8.67 percent during the July-to-September period, thanks to robust global demand for electronics used in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and new-generation smartphones, the DGBAS said.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan is home to the world’s major suppliers of AI chips, servers, storage, memory and other devices.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), whose clients include Nvidia Corp, Apple Inc, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Intel Corp and other technology titans, recently posted strong third-quarter earnings and gave a rosy business guidance for this quarter and beyond.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said that the demand for AI is real and still only in its beginning stage, adding that he expected that to benefit the chipmaker for the next five years.
Likewise, ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging service provider, yesterday delivered a third-quarter profit of NT$9.67 billion (US$301.9 million), marking advances of 24.27 percent and 10.14 percent from the preceding quarter and a year earlier.
Domestic shipping companies also reported hefty gains, although for different reasons, the DGBAS said, as reduced container supply caused by Red Sea rerouting bolstered freight rates and profitability for Taiwanese container shippers, including Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) and Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運).
Private consumption increased 1.92 percent from a year earlier, as retail and restaurant sales grew 2.47 percent and 0.87 percent respectively from a year earlier, DGBAS said.
The agency attributed it to a stable job market, wage hikes and stock market rallies, the agency said.
Capital formation, a drag in the first quarter and recent years, spiked 15.27 percent year-on-year after staging a 14.78 percent recovery in the second quarter, the agency said
The government sped up construction on infrastructure projects while private enterprises actively purchased capital equipment from abroad to expand capacity and meet business needs, it said.
The uptrend should be sustainable through the end of the year, as the current quarter is the high sales season for consumer electronic products, it said.
The DGBAS would formally review and update its GDP forecast this month.
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