Taiwan Business Indicators in January 2014
Press Release
National Development Council (NDC)
February 27, 2014
In January 2014, the Taiwan Business Indicators showed that the economy continued its recovery, but some risks remained. Among the indicators compiled by the National Development Council (NDC), the trend-adjusted leading index decreased by 0.05%, the trend-adjusted coincident index increased by 0.43% 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 103.75, up by 0.07% from December 2013. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 0.05% to 100.84. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the TIER manufacturing sector composite indicator, the index of export orders, real monetary aggregates M1B, 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 building permits and SEMI book-to-bill ratio had negative cyclical movements.
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 103.89, up by 0.55% from December 2013. Its trend-adjusted index increased by 0.43% to 100.97. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, sales of trade and food services, real machineries and electrical equipments imports, the industrial production index, and the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while real customs-cleared exports, nonagricultural employment, and electric power consumption had negative cyclical movements.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 100.46, down by 0.29% from December 2013. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 0.41% to 97.64. Among the six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the unemployment rate(inverted) had positive cyclical movement from the previous month, while the manufacturing unit output labor cost index, loans and investments of monetary financial institutions, the inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing, the interbank overnight call-loan rate, and regular employees on payrolls in industry and services had negative cyclical movements.
4. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in January 2014 decreased by two points to 22, flashing the “yellow-blue” signal. Among the nine components, the industrial production index changed its individual light signal from “green” to “yellow-blue”, the imports of machineries and electrical equipments changed its individual light signal from “yellow-red” to “green”, the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing changed its individual light signal from “yellow-blue” to “blue” , each lost one point, while the TIER manufacturing sector composite indicator gained one point to changed its individual light signal from “green” to “yellow-red”. The light signal for the rest of five components remained unchanged.
~~ The next release is scheduled for March 27 2014 ~~