Taipei, Sept. 10, 2012 (CENS)--Taiwana's export dropped, for the sixth consecutive month, 4.2% year-on-year to US$24.69 billion in August, reported the Ministry of Finance on Sept. 7. Exports in the first eight months reached US$196.34 billion, down 5.6% year-on-year, the worst performance among the four Asian little dragons.
In August, basic metal and products, information and communications products, and chemicals suffered the steepest decline. In the first eight months, export of information and communications products staged the worst performance, dropping 23.4% year-on-year to US$10.29 billion. Under the category, export of mobile phones suffered the steepest decline of US$3.09 billion, or 41%, than a year earlier.
Yeh Man-tsu, chief statistician of the MOF, however, pointed out that export may switch to positive growth in September, thanks to expected upturn in market demand following the advent of procurement season for U.S. and European firms.
The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) predicted that Taiwana's export for the whole year will declined 1.72%, for the first export decline in the recent four years.
Yeh noted that although Taiwana's export suffered six consecutive months of decline, other neighboring Asian nations also started to suffer conspicuous export decline from June. Prior to June, Taiwan suffered higher extent of export decline than other Asian nations, but the gap has narrowed now,said Yeh.
However, Taiwana's export performance so far this year is still the worst among the four Asian little dragons. Singaporea's export inched up 1.8% in the first seven months, Hong Konga's export scored zero growth in the first seven months, while Koreaa's export declined 1.5% in the first eight months, compared 4.6% export decline of Taiwan in the first eight months.
Taiwana's export to the European Union, said Yeh, tumbled 19.2% year-on-year in August but exports to mainland China/Hong Kong, the U.S., Japan, and Singapore already resumed positive growth.
In August, shipment of Taiwan-made electronic products to Singapore topped US$1.04 billion, enabling Singapore to overtake Japan to become the nationa's third largest export outlet.
Meanwhile, Taiwana's import in the first eight months dropped 5.7% to US$180.91 billion.
(by Philip Liu)
