FIVE-YEAR RECORD:All PMI sectors saw increased business, with makers of electronic components and optical devices experiencing the fastest pace of growth, CIER said

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 06, 2017
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

Last month’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 65.2, the highest figure since its inception in July 2012, benefitting from strong worldwide demand and February’s fewer working days which led to a low base, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.

“The latest PMI data reflected a solid increase in new business and production among local manufacturers,” CIER president Wu Chung-shu (吳中書) told a news conference in Taipei.

The economist shrugged off concerns raised by reporters that the nation’s economy might be overheating and in danger of crashing, saying that Taiwan remains on course for a stable and modest recovery.

The PMI, a gauge of the health of the manufacturing industry, also climbed to a record high last month and has posted 13 consecutive months of expansions.  [FULL  STORY]