Taiwan March telecom products orders rose 23%, April to be slower

Taiwan’s export orders grew faster than expected in March, setting a new high for the month bolstered by sustained technology demand, but the government warned of much slower growth for April on the Ukraine war and supply bottlenecks.

Taiwan’s export orders, a bellwether of global technology demand, rose 16.8 per cent from a year earlier to $62.69 billion last month, data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed on Wednesday, the highest figure for the month on record.

It marked the 25th straight month of expansion, with the pace outperforming the median forecast of 15.5 per cent growth in a Reuters poll.

The first quarter, coming after the year-end holiday season in Western markets, is traditionally a slow one, but export orders rose 16.2 per cent on-year, the ministry said.

In March, orders for telecommunications products rose 23.3 per cent on year and soared 31.7 per cent for electronic products.

Growth has been supported by booming tech demand as well as a global semiconductor shortage that has filled Taiwanese chip makers’ order books.

However, the ministry said it expects export orders in April to expand only between 1 per cent and 3.8 per cent from a year earlier.

“The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has pushed up global inflationary pressure, coupled with the continued spread of variant (COVID-19) viruses and supply chain bottlenecks and other uncertain factors, which may inhibit the growth of global trade,” it said.

Still, the ministry said 5G, high-performance computing and automotive electronics would keep driving demand for semiconductors, helping export order momentum.

In February, export orders leapt 21.1 per cent from a year earlier to $51.56 billion, far outperforming expectations.

Orders from the United States in March rose 18.9 per cent from a year earlier, a slower rate of expansion compared with the 23.5 per cent logged in February, while orders from China increased 9.1 per cent, cooling from a gain of 17.6 per cent the previous month.

China has put Shanghai under a tight lockdown since late March and neighbouring Kunshan has also tightened curbs to control the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak since the coronavirus was discovered in late 2019 in the city of Wuhan.

Orders from Europe rose 20.1 per cent, while those from Japan went up 3.8 per cent. CNA