COMPARISON BASE: Investment in fixed assets by companies last quarter was affected by a company’s substantial equipment purchases last year, the Department of Statistics said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 01, 2017
By: Lauly Li  /  Staff reporter

The manufacturing sector’s fixed-asset investments plunged 18 percent year-on-year to NT$233 billion (US$7.76 billion) last quarter, the first annual contraction in eight quarters and the lowest investment level in the past five quarters, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

The growth momentum of fixed-asset investments decelerated in the second quarter this year, only expanding 1 percent annually compared with 17 percent year-on-year growth in the first quarter of this year, the Department of Statistics said.

“Last quarter’s decline was mainly due to the comparison base being lifted by the substantial production expansion plans of a local semiconductor company the previous year,” department Deputy Director-General Wang Shu-chuan (王淑娟) said by telephone.

The equipment that the company purchased last year became operational in the first quarter, so the company slowed its equipment purchases in the second and third quarters, which consequently had a drag on the fixed-asset investments of the overall sector, she said.    [FULL  STORY]