Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/15
By: Liao Yu-yang and Frances Huang 

Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) With the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China still underway, export orders received by Taiwanese firms are expected to continue weakening into the first quarter of next year, an economist said Saturday.

In addition, a fall in raw material prices and lower-than-expected global demand for tech devices mean that Taiwan, an export-oriented economy, is expected to feel the pinch and report disappointing export orders, said Gordon Sun (孫明德), director of the Economic Forecasting Center under the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is scheduled to report the country’s export orders for November on Dec. 20 after a monthly record high of US$48.99 billion reported for October, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier, the fourth straight month of increase.

The MOEA said the global business sector has become more cautious, prompting many foreign buyers to put their purchases on hold, so it has forecast that Taiwan’s export orders for November will range between US$48 billion and US$49 billion, representing a range of between a 0.6 percent year-on-year increase to a fall of 1.4 percent.
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