The COVID-19 epidemic has resulted in adversities for the outlook of export orders for the previous two months but this discouraging situation has, in March, been cleared as orders for electronic products have reached US$12.45 billion, presenting a new high amount for the same period last year. Orders for information and communication products have also totaled US$11.54 billion, presenting a new high amount in March compared to previous years.

          Huang Yu-ling, the Director of the Department of Statistics, stated that orders for electronic products in March increased by 23.8%, compared to the same period last year. The main reason for this increase is that 5G communications, high-performance computing, and other emerging technology applications have continued to increase in demand, resulting in growing orders for manufacturers concerning wafer foundry, IC design, packaging and testing, chip channels, PCB and memory. This may also be because the basis is relatively lower when compared to the same month last year.

 

          Huang, Yu-ling also stated that orders for electronic products from China had decreased since they were affected by COVID-19 in the previous days. However, these orders have resumed in March. Among them, the orders from China and Hong Kong have increased by US$1.27 billion and in the US by US$550 million.

 

        For information and communication products, the performance in March increased by 6.9% year-on-year. Huang, Yu-ling considered the main reason to be that the production lines of manufacturers have resumed work in the mainland, while the effect of order deferrals has appeared, along with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, so remote work and online teaching have encouraged the demands to significantly increase. All these demands have also led to the growth of orders for mobile phones, laptops, and network communication products. However, since the epidemic has spread throughout the world and some countries have been impacted severely, the situation has encouraged some terminal demands to slow down while offsetting some of the growth.

       

        In addition to industries such as optical equipment, basic metal products, plastic and rubber products, and chemicals and mechanical products, they have continued to decline, with annual reductions ranging from 6% to 19.8%. Huang Yu-ling also described that the investment momentum remains weak due to the impact of the epidemic but some manufacturers have received large orders for semiconductors and automation equipment, which help to counterbalance this reduction.

 

        As for traditional goods, the Department of Statistics indicated that terminal consumer demands remain weak since COVID-19 continues to spread and the momentum of orders presents negative growth because of the plummeting international crude oil and steel prices.

 

        Notably, the overseas production ratio increased to 50.5% in March, showing a tremendous increase of 9.9 % from 40.7% in February. Huang Yu-ling explained that orders have largely returned to the previous state after the work operation in China resumed but overseas production in two major industries such as information and communication and electronic products remains lower than that of the same period last year. The data have shown that these industries are affected by the epidemic but Taiwan has received a transfer for urgent orders. (News source: Commercial Times)