News
August PMI rises to 56
By ECCT staff writers
Taiwan’s official manufacturing purchasing manager’s index (PMI) increased 1.9 percentage points to 56.0%, indicating growth in Taiwan’s manufacturing sector for two consecutive months. According to the monthly PMI report by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), both manufacturers’ new orders and production grew for two consecutive months. The seasonally-adjusted New Order Index and the Production Index increased 5.8 and 0.9 percentage points to 62.5% and 59.2%, respectively. The seasonally adjusted Employment Index further increased 0.8 percentage points to 52.5%, up for the second consecutive month.
Manufacturers’ inventories returned to growth in August following two months of contraction as the Inventories Index further increased 0.9 percentage points to 50.6%.
According to the report, manufacturers believe that their customers have insufficient inventories on hand for three consecutive months as the Customer’s Inventories Index fell 5.0 percentage points to 41.9%.
Manufacturers are experiencing higher prices of their purchases for the third consecutive month, as the Price Index increased 1.7 percentage points to 58.9% and recorded the highest reading since October 2018.
Manufacturers’ backlog turned to growth following four months of contraction as the Backlog of Orders Index further rose 6.2 percentage points to 53.5%.
Both New Export Orders and Imports indexes grew for the second consecutive month and accelerated, as they further increased 4.8 and 3.8 percentage points to 57.3% and 54.5%, respectively.
The Future Outlook Index reversed its recent trend of contracting in the past six months and returned to growth in August, registering 4.2 percentage points higher than the 49.3 percent reported in July.
Of the six manufacturing industries categories, five are reporting growing in the following order: Transportation Equipment (57.9%), Electronic & Optical (57.8%), Foods & Textiles (57.4%), Basic Materials (54.9%) and Chemical, Biological & Medical (54.5%) while Electrical & Machinery Equipment (49.2%) remains in contraction, as it has been for sixteen consecutive months.
