Taiwan Business Indicators in August 2011
Press Release
Council for Economic Planning and Development
September 27, 2011
In August 2011, Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy has been on the downgrade and become more uncertain. 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 0.9 points, the trend-adjusted coincident index decreased by 1.1% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "yellow-blue" signal.
1. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the composite leading index stood at 127.4, down by 0.3% from July. Its annualized six-month rate of change decreased by 0.9 points to 0.2%. All seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index had negative cyclical movements from previous month, which were index of export orders, average monthly overtime in industry and services, building permits, stock price index, SEMI book-to-bill ratio, index of producer's inventory for manufacturing (inverted), and real monetary aggregates M1B.
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 133.0, down by 0.1% from July. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 1.1% to 98.2. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, electric power consumption and nonagricultural employment had positive cyclical movements from previous month. Real machineries and electrical equipments imports, the industrial production index, real customs-cleared exports, index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and the sales index of wholesale, retail and food services had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 148.3, up by 2.0% from July. Its trend-adjusted index rose by 1.0% to 109.5. 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, and regular employees on payrolls in industry and services had positive cyclical movements from previous month. Unemployment rate (inverted) had negative cyclical movement from previous month.
4. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in August was down by 1 point to 22, changing the overall light signal from "green" to "yellow-blue". Among the nine components, direct and indirect finance gained one point and changed its individual light signal from "yellow-blue" to "green", stock price index lost one point and changed its individual light signal from "yellow-red" to "green", customs-cleared exports lost one point and changed its individual light signal from "yellow-blue" to "blue". The light signals for the rest of six components remained unchanged.
~~ The next release is scheduled for October 27 2011 ~~