Taiwan Jan exports down for 5th month, China shipments slump

TAIPEI  – Taiwan’s exports fell for a fifth straight month in January due to a deteriorating global economy and factory closures during the long Lunar New Year holiday, with the outlook remaining poor in the short term.

Exports dropped 21.2 percent by value last month from a year earlier to $31.51 billion, the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday.

That followed a 12.1-percent drop in December, and was slightly worse than Reuters poll forecast for a 20-percent contraction.

The ministry said seasonally weaker global demand after the year-end festive period and fewer working days, as the Lunar New Year fell in January this year, dragged on exports.

Taiwan’s total shipments of electronics components in January fell 20.1 percent to $12.72 billion, the worst decline in 11 years, with semiconductor exports down 18.3 percent from a year earlier.

Firms such as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, are major suppliers to Apple Inc and other global tech giants, as well as providers of chips for auto companies and lower-end consumer goods.

United Microelectronics Corp, a smaller competitor of TSMC, reported on Monday that January sales dropped 4.31 percent year-on-year.

At $10.44 billion in January, Taiwan’s exports to China, the island’s largest trading partner, plummeted 33.5 percent from a year earlier, after suffering a 16.4-percent drop in December, even as Beijing dismantled its zero-COVID regime.

Taiwan’s finance ministry said continued tightening of monetary policy in major economies will weigh on overall demand, coupled with other risks such as the war in Ukraine and China-U.S. trade tensions.

“It will not be easy to recover significantly in the short term,” it said, predicting that February exports could contract 7 percent to 11 percent from a year earlier, and drop around 10 percent in the first quarter.

January’s exports to the United States were down 14.5 percent , compared with a 2.6-percent contraction recorded the previous month.

Taiwan’s January imports, often seen as a leading indicator of re-exports of finished products, fell 16.6 percent to $29.17 billion. That compared with economists’ expectations of a 18.2-percent fall and after an 11.4 percent decline in December.