DOLDRUMS:Economists said interest rate cuts would have little effect if the nation continues to focus on a few industries and markets, given a slowdown in global trade

Taipei Times
Date:  Sep 26, 2015
By: Crystal Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan is likely to have slipped into recession, as evidenced by a general slowdown in economic activity this and last quarter, driving the central bank on Thursday to cut interest rates in a bid to reverse the downturn, economists said yesterday.

The rate cut, the first in six years, may do little if companies shy away from investment and consumers tighten their belts, economists said.

“We are definitely in a recession, given sustained declines of economic data, though some may disagree about its definition,” Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute (元大寶華研究院) chairman Liang Kuo-yuan (梁國源) said by telephone.

The EU defines recession as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, as measured by the seasonal adjusted quarter-on-quarter figures for real GDP.     [FULL  STORY]