Taiwan Business Indicators in November 2011
Press Release
Council for Economic Planning and Development
December 27, 2011
In November 2011, Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy has significant downside risks. Among the indicators compiled by the Cabinet’s Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), the annualized six-month rate of change of leading index decreased by 0.1 points, the trend-adjusted coincident index decreased by 1.4% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "yellow-blue" signal for the fourth consecutive month.
1. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the composite leading index stood at 126.8, down by 0.01% from October. Its annualized six-month rate of change decreased by 0.1 points to -0.5%. All seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index had negative cyclical movements from previous month, which were average monthly overtime in industry and services, stock price index, real monetary aggregates M1B, index of export orders, SEMI book-to-bill ratio, building permits, and index of producer's inventory for manufacturing (inverted).
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 128.4, down by 0.5% from October. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 1.4% to 94.8. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, electric power consumption had positive cyclical movements from previous month. The sales index of wholesale, retail and food services, real machineries and electrical equipments imports, the industrial production index, real customs-cleared exports, index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and nonagricultural employment had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 145.1, up by 1.1% from October. Its trend-adjusted index rose by 0.2% to 107.1. Among the six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the manufacturing unit output labor cost index, inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing, interbank overnight call-loan rate, loans and investments of major financial institutions had positive cyclical movements from previous month. Unemployment rate (inverted), regular employees on payrolls in industry and services had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
4. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in November was down by 2 points to 17. The overall light signal flashed the "yellow- blue" signal for the fourth consecutive month. Among the nine components, industrial production index lost one point and changed its individual light signal from "yellow-blue" to "blue", customs-cleared exports lost one point and changed its individual light signal from "green" to "yellow-blue". The light signals for the rest of seven components remained unchanged.
~~ The next release is scheduled for January 31 2012 ~~