Taiwan Business Indicators in March 2011
Press Release
Council for Economic Planning and Development
April 27, 2011
In March 2011, Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy continued its steady growth. 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 0.2 points, the trend-adjusted coincident index increased by 0.1% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "green" signal.
1. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the composite leading index stood at 126.9, up by 0.2% from February. Its annualized six-month rate of change decreased by 0.2 points to 3.0%. All seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index had negative cyclical movements from previous month, which are index of producer's inventory for manufacturing, building permits, real monetary aggregates M1B, SEMI book-to-bill ratio, index of export orders, average monthly overtime in industry and services, and stock price index.
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 137.3, up by 1.1% from February. Its trend-adjusted index increased by 0.1% to 105.5. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, nonagricultural employment, index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, the industrial production index, and real customs-cleared exports had positive cyclical movements from previous month. The sales index of wholesale, retail and food services, electric power consumption, and real machineries and electrical equipments imports had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 139.6, up by 2.3% from February. Its trend-adjusted index rose by 1.2% to 107.3. Among the six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, unemployment rate, inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing, loans and investments of major financial institutions, regular employees on payrolls in industry and services, and interbank overnight call-loan rate had positive cyclical movements from previous month. The manufacturing unit output labor cost index had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
4. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in March was down by 3 points to 31, changing the overall light signal from "yellow-red" to "green". Among the nine components, stock price lost one point and changed its individual light signal from "yellow-red" to "green", customs cleared exports lost two points and changed its individual light signal from "red" to "green". The light signals for the rest of seven components remained unchanged.
~~ The next release is scheduled for May 27 2011 ~~