Press Release
National Development Council (NDC)
April 27, 2017
In March 2017, the Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy continued its steady growth. Among the indicators compiled by the National Development Council (NDC), the trend-adjusted leading and coincident index slightly decreased by 0.17% and 0.49% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "green" signal.
- The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in March 2017 decreased by four points to 24, flashing the “green” signal for the ninth month. Among the nine components, the monetary aggregate M1B, the industrial production index, the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and the sales of trade and food services each lost one point to change its individual light from “green” to “yellow-blue”. The light signal for the rest of five components remained unchanged.
- Leading Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted leading index stood at 101.53, down by 0.17% from February 2017. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, building permits, TAIEX average closing price, and net accession rate of employees on payrolls of industry and services had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while real imports of semiconductor equipment, the index of export orders, real monetary aggregates M1B, and the TIER manufacturing sector composite indicator had negative cyclical movements.
- Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted coincident index stood at 102.05, down by 0.49% from February 2017. Among seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, sales of trade and food services, and nonagricultural employment had positive cyclical movements, while real machineries and electrical equipments imports, electric power consumption, the industrial production index, the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and real customs-cleared exports had negative cyclical movements.
- Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted lagging index stood at 99.85, up by 0.57% from February 2017. All six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index had positive cyclical movements, which were the inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing, the manufacturing unit output labor cost index, regular employees on payrolls in industry and services, the unemployment rate (inverted), loans and investments of monetary financial institutions, and the interbank overnight call-loan rate.
~~ Next publication date: May 26 2017 ~~