Taiwan's Economic Monitor Flashes 5th Straight Monthly Yellow-blue in November, 2013

Taiwan's economic monitoring indicator flashed the fifth yellow-blue in November 2013 with the composite scores edging up one point from a month earlier to 21 points, implying weak economic recovery, according to the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD).

An official at CEPD says that the economic indicator showed 22 consecutive monthly yellow-blue from August 2011 to May 2013 and turned green in June 2013. However, a month later the light turned yellow blue again to remain into November.

In the same month the leading index, used to forecast the economic outlook for the next three months, inched up 0.19% for the 15th consecutive monthly rise; and the coincident index, used to assess economic climate in a given month, also posted a minimal growth of 0.07%.

Global Insight, a leading forecast institution, predicts that global economic growth may reach 3.3% for 2014, higher than2.5% predicted for 2013; and the prediction of the U.K.-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) shows that the corresponding percentage for 2014 is 2.7%, also higher than its prediction of 2% for 2013.

Seeing a better global economic climate for 2014, Taiwan is optimistic about its economy for the year and expects the economic indicator to turn green in the first half of 2014.

In December of 2013 the consumer confidence index (CCI) stood at 78.22, edged down by 0.21 from a month earlier for the second consecutive monthly drop, according to the survey done by Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development of the National Central University.

The survey shows that among the six sub-indexes, only confidence in stock market purchase posted an uptrend by 2.6 to 71.6 and the other five all fell, particularly the domestic economy presented the largest drop of 1.85 to 69.85. (JL)