Taipei [Taiwan], May 28 : Taiwan's economy showed signs of a "warming economy" in April, helped by the rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, which supported the manufacturing sector, according to the National Development Council (NDC), reported Focus Taiwan.
In April, for the fourth consecutive month, NDC's composite index reflected signs of "warming economy", by staying in the yellow-red range. However, for this month, the index ticked lower by just 2 points to stand at 33 points, as compared to last month.
"The NDC uses a five-color system to track the economy: red signals overheating (38-45 points), yellow-red indicates a warming economy (32-37 points), green means stable growth (23-31 points), yellow-blue reflects sluggishness (17-22 points) and blue denotes recession (9-16 points)," Focus Taiwan reported.
Among the nine factors in April's composite index, those measuring manufacturing sector sales showed a red signal up from yellow-red according to the data.
Head of the NDC's Department of Economic Development, Chiu Chiu-ying, said that the boost was driven mainly by strong demand for emerging technologies such as AI and high-performance computing (HPC) devices, as well as a surge in orders placed ahead of schedule before higher U.S. tariffs took effect.
Chiu Chiu-ying also mentioned that Trump's inconsistent tariff policies could impact the country's economic outlook.
On April 2, Trump announced that Washington would impose "reciprocal" tariffs on global trading partners, but the plan was later paused for 90 days. Under the original proposal, goods from Taiwan would have faced import duties of up to 32 per cent.
Recently, Taiwan's industrial production registered a rise of more than 20 per cent as compared with the same month last year, marking the 14th consecutive month of year-on-year growth, as per Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) also cautioned the US government that imposing tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could undermine its significant investment plans in Arizona.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor