A local think tank has upgraded its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year to 3.28%. The new figure was released Friday by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).
The director of the institute’s Macroeconomic Forecasting Center, Gordon Sun, said the upward revision was due to the global recovery that has been driving up export orders and domestic consumption in Taiwan.
“Improvement in domestic consumption and the labor market was the main reason we upgraded our projection. But of course there are still some downside risks," Sun said. "First, investment figures in the second half of the year might not be as strong because the baseline is higher. Second, exports might not reach our expectation, as they only grew by 2% for the first half of the year. Many people believe that orders from Apple will push up exports for the next six months. But other industries such as steel, petrochemicals, and flat panels are all facing severe challenges.”
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector in Taiwan took a slight dip in output from last month while the service and construction sectors improve. The think tank is positive on the economic outlook for the next sixth months. But it believes global geopolitical conflicts and the tapering of quantitative easing in the US will continue to be major uncertainties for the market.