Press Release
National Development Council (NDC)
April 28, 2014
In March 2014, the Taiwan Business Indicators showed that the economy was gradually stabilizing, but some risks remained. Among the indicators compiled by the National Development Council (NDC), the trend-adjusted leading index increased by 0.10%, the trend-adjusted coincident index slightly decreased by 0.04% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "green" signal for the second month.
1. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the composite leading index stood at 104.49, up by 0.22% from February 2014. Its trend-adjusted index increased by 0.10% to 101.16. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the TIER manufacturing sector composite indicator, building permits, net accession rate of employees on payrolls of industry and services, real monetary aggregates M1B, and TAIEX average closing price had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while the index of export orders and SEMI book-to-bill ratio had negative cyclical movements.
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 103.70, up by 0.08% from February 2014. Its trend-adjusted index slightly decreased by 0.04% to 100.40. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, real machineries and electrical equipments imports, the index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and real customs-cleared exports had positive cyclical movements from the previous month, while electric power consumption, sales of trade and food services, nonagricultural employment, and the industrial production index had negative cyclical movements.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 100.46, down by 0.15% from February 2014. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 0.27% to 97.26. 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 March 2014 remained at 25, flashing the “green” signal for the second month. Among the nine components, the industrial production index and the customs-cleared exports changed its individual light signal from “green” to “yellow-blue”, each lost one point, while the imports of machineries and electrical equipments gained two points to change its individual light signal form “yellow-blue” to “yellow-red”. The light signal for the rest of six components remained unchanged.
~~ The next release is scheduled for May 27 2014 ~~