Index signals sluggish growth for Taiwan’s economy in December

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/26
By: Cheng Cheng-wei and Frances Huang

Taipei, Jan. 26 (CNA) Taiwan’s economy flashed a “yellow-blue” light in December, signaling sluggish growth, but the steady rise of an index of leading indicators showed the economy was still headed in the right direction, the National Development Council (NDC) said Friday.

The NDC said the composite index of monitoring indicators for December fell one point from November to 22, the high end of the 17 to 22 range for the yellow-blue light.

The index had previously flashed three “green” lights in a row, representing steady growth. It originally recorded a 22 in November, but was revised upward by one point to 23 to fall within the green light range on revised data for sales in the manufacturing sector.

The NDC uses a five-color system to gauge the country’s economic performance, with blue indicating economic recession, yellow-blue representing economic sluggishness, green denoting stable growth, yellow-red referring to a warming economy and red pointing to economic overheating.    [FULL  STORY]