Taiwan's Export Order Value Hits Record High of US$43.3B. in September

The value of export orders received by Taiwan's manufacturers and traders in September rose an annual 13.4% to hit a record monthly high of US$43.31 billion, according to the statistics released by Taiwan's  Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

Such rising figure was due mainly to increasing orders from China and Hong Kong for electronic parts, ICT items, plastic and chemicals for iPhone 6, which have reportedly sold well globally.

In September orders for ICT products reached US$12.85 billion and for electronic products US$11.15 billion, both new monthly highs of their kinds, with the former enjoying year-on-year growth of 16.3% and the latter  19.4%. However, orders for precision instruments, mainly LCD panels, declined the 17th consecutive month of 2.1% to US$2.86 billion.

Insiders say that China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has in recent years been helping develop the local semiconductor industry and lately announced to funnel 120 billion renmibi in Taiwan's  semiconductor industry including wafer foundry, packaging, and related facilities, hence being one of the main reasons for the drop in demand for Taiwan's precision instruments. So far orders from China and Hong Kong for Taiwan's precision instruments have accounted for 60% of the island's total orders for such products.

In September, orders from the United States jumped 15.5% from a year earlier to US$11.37 billion and those from China and Hong Kong rose 8.6% to US$10.4 billion.

L. C. Lin, director of the Statistics Department of MOEA, indicates  the value of export orders received in the first nine months totaled  US$340.1 billion and that in October is estimated to be US$44 billion. So the value for 2014 is very likely to hit record high of over US$460 billion. (JL)