Taiwan manufacturing lifts on recovering global economy

TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Purchasing Managers’ Index got back on an expansionary track in December, gaining 0.9% to 50.1%, according to the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research. “The result puts an end to a four-month downward trend,” CIER President, Wu Chung-shu, said, pointing to a buoyant U.S. economy and improvement in the Euro zone.

Among the benchmark’s 11 subindexes, new orders and production gained 3.2% and 1.6% to 50.2% and 50.3%, respectively, while employment picked up 2.1% to 52.2%, continuing a 25-month growth streak at an accelerating rate.
Supplier deliveries dropped for the third month to 48.3%, the lowest level since August 2013, and inventories went down to 49.6%, ending an 11-month expansionary run. Backlog orders, customers’ inventories, exports, imports and raw material prices all contracted at an increasing pace, with the price index down to an all-time low.
While the six-month outlook was still below the 50% benchmark separating expansion from contraction, the subindex gained 5.5 percentage points in the month.
Among Taiwan’s six major industries, electrical and machinery equipment, food and textiles, as well as transportation equipment, continued growing. But basic materials, chemical, biological and medical, in addition to electronics and optical, further declined. www.taiwantoday.tw (ATI).