2023/05/02 17:23:13

United Daily News reporter Chen Suling / Taipei real-time report

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The Chung-Hua Economic Research Institute released today the Taiwan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for April 2023. The seasonally adjusted manufacturing PMI index in April continued to drop by 4.5 percentage points to 42.8%, which has been contracting for two consecutive months. The outlook index for the next six months has been tightened for 12 consecutive months. The index has dropped 1.3 percentage points to 44.9% from 46.2%, the slowest rate of tightening since May 2022. Chen Xinhui, an assistant researcher at the Chinese Academy of Economics, pointed out that the current economic climate is "hot and cold". Vendor expectations and procurement policies.

 

Among the five component indicators, seasonally adjusted new orders and manpower employment showed contraction. After seasonal adjustment, production turned into contraction, supplier delivery time decreased, and inventory contracted.

 

The Institute of Economics and Economics stated that the second quarter of previous years is the layout of new products before the launch of the second half of the year. However, due to the adjustment of inventory in the manufacturing industry, the strength of the purchase in April is not as good as before. The seasonally adjusted new orders have been tightened for two consecutive months, and the index continues to fall. 3.9 percentage points to 40.6%. Coupled with the adjustment of electricity prices in April, some companies that have received orders said that they have completed production in March. The seasonally adjusted production index interrupted the expansion for two consecutive months and turned to contraction. The index fell 13.5 percentage points to 38.5%.

 

The four major industries report PMI contraction, and the industries are ranked according to the speed of contraction as the electric power and mechanical equipment industry (43.9%), the transportation industry (44.6%), the electronics and optics industry (45.7%), and the chemical and biotechnology medical industry (46.7%) ). The food and textile industry (52.7%) and the basic raw material industry (51.4%) reported PMI expansion.

 

Chen Xinhui, an assistant researcher at the Chinese Academy of Economics, analyzed that the current economic climate is warming and cold, and the first month of Q2 is not as good as expected. The mentality of manufacturers has changed. Strikes, equalization of land rights regulations, and electricity price increases have impacted manufacturers' expectations and procurement policies.

 

She said that since January this year, quotations for metals and plastics have risen sharply, and some industries have strategically increased key inventories by a small amount. The inventory index once turned flat in February. However, the liquidity crisis broke out in Bank of America in March, and market expectations were conservative. In April, the US economic data, interest rate hikes and inflation expectations deepened the market’s concerns about a hard landing, causing raw material prices to fall back. Although the manufacturing industry has returned for five consecutive months The price of raw materials rose from the previous month, but the index continued to drop by 4.5 percentage points to 52.0%. The mentality of chasing up and not chasing down made customers wait and see, and the speed of customers placing orders and pulling goods slowed down. The supplier delivery time index also fell back to 42.2%, the fastest rate of decline since its creation in July 2012, and the customer inventory index also fell to 44.9%, the lowest since July 2021.

 

The Institute of Economics and Economics stated that the future outlook is flat and conservative compared with March, and the industry is concentrated in IC design and wafer manufacturers in the basic raw material industry, transportation industry, electrical machinery industry, and electro-optical industry. In the telephone interviews, managers of various industries often mentioned interest rate hikes, noise in the U.S. economy, cross-strait relations and geopolitics, China’s recovery in April slowed down, raw material prices retreated, TSMC’s capital expenditures were lower than expected, and electricity price increases, etc. , making the speed of domestic and foreign orders slow down significantly compared with March and wait and see.

 

Taiwan's non-manufacturing managers' index (NMI), which was not seasonally adjusted in April, expanded for six consecutive months, with the index rising by 2.6 percentage points to 55.8%, the fastest expansion since August 2022.