Slowing tech demand continues to hurt Taiwanese exports
Shrinking orders in April put the island on track for the seventh consecutive contraction in shipments
Taipei — Taiwan’s export orders fell at a slower pace than expected in April, but the government says May will bring a seventh straight month of contraction as slowing global tech demand continued to hurt the island’s trade-reliant economy. Orders in April dropped 3.7% from a year earlier to $37.66bn, ministry of economic affairs data showed on Monday. A Reuters poll had forecast a 5.9% fall. In March, orders dropped 9% from a year earlier. Taiwan’s high-tech factories are major suppliers for global tech heavyweights such as Apple and Qualcomm, and the continued weakness in orders suggests global electronic demand will remain soft for some time. Carl Liu, an analyst at KGI Securities, noted that April orders did not include the latest escalation of the US-China trade war, “which has added risk to future export orders and will decrease and delay any recovery to export orders in the second half of the year”. The new tariffs “will mean very limited growth momentum”, he said. The minist...
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