STATE HELP?More private investment and government efforts to ramp up innovative industries are tipped to add support to private investment and the overall economy

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 26, 2016
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The nation’s GDP expanded 2.03 percent last quarter from a year earlier, slightly slower than estimates last month of 2.06 percent, as domestic demand single-handedly supported a mild recovery, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

The agency raised its forecast for GDP growth to 1.35 percent for the whole of this year, an increase of 0.13 percentage points from its prediction in August, after exports fared better than expected.

“The recovery gained traction each quarter and the pace is expected to accelerate for the rest of the year,” DGBAS Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a media briefing.

The 2.03 percent pickup is the fastest in six quarters after the nation’s export-focused economy emerged from three consecutive quarters of decline in the April-to-June period, the DGBAS’ quarterly report showed.    [FULL  STORY]