Press Release
National Development Council (NDC)
June 26, 2015
In May 2015, Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy has been on the downturn. Among the indicators compiled by the National Development Council (NDC), the trend-adjusted leading index decreased by 0.41%, the trend-adjusted coincident index decreased by 0.72% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "yellow-blue" signal.
1. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in May increased by two points to 18, flashing the “yellow-blue” signal for the first month. Among the nine components, the monetary aggregates M1B and the imports of machineries and electrical equipments each gained one point to change its individual light form “yellow-blue” to “green”, while the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing gained one point to change its individual light form “blue” to “yellow-blue”, and the industrial production index lost one point to change its individual light form “yellow-blue” to “blue”. The light signal for the rest of five components remained unchanged.
2. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted leading index stood at 98.07, down by 0.41% from April 2015. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, net accession rate of employees on payrolls of industry and services, TAIEX average closing price, and real monetary aggregates M1B had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while the index of export orders, building permits, the TIER manufacturing sector composite indicator, and SEMI book-to-bill ratio had negative cyclical movements.
3. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted coincident index stood at 98.54, down by 0.72% from April 2015. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, electric power consumption and nonagricultural employment had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while the industrial production index, sales of trade and food services, real machineries electrical equipments imports, real customs-cleared exports, and the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing had negative cyclical movements.
4. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the trend-adjusted lagging index stood at 101.53, up by 0.27% from April 2015. Among the six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the manufacturing unit output labor cost index, and the inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while loans and investments of monetary financial institutions, the unemployment rate (inverted), regular employees on payrolls in industry and services, and the interbank overnight call-loan rate had negative cyclical movement.
~~ The next release is scheduled for July 27 2015 ~~