A record divergence between prices and volumes of Asia’s chip exports is making regional trade more resistant to external shocks, according to economic advisory company Oxford Economics.
The consultancy’s proprietary Asia chip export index surged almost 81 percent in value in March from a year earlier, but rose only about 28 percent in volume terms.
While such a split usually signals a price peak, “the pattern appears different” this time, economists led by Betty Wang (王蕊) said in a report on Monday.
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The widening gap reflects “significant pricing power in advanced chips supported by a healthy order pipeline,” they said. “The solid performance has helped decouple regional trade from external headwinds, including the Middle East conflict, potential energy bottlenecks and tightening private credit conditions.”
Fueled by a ravenous global appetite for chips to power the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, technology exports have boomed from Taiwan to South Korea, despite the disruptions unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Oxford Economics said AI-related demand could add as much as 15 percentage points to Asian export growth this year.
Across the five economies tracked by Oxford Economics — Taiwan, South Korea, China, Japan and Singapore — semiconductor exports jumped 80 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.
In contrast, Asia’s shipments of non-tech goods rose only 4.6 percent in March.
“Persistent compute demand has become the main engine of regional export growth,” the economists said.
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