Taiwan Posts Fastest Growth Since 2010 on Export-Fueled Boom
Gross domestic product expanded 8.16% in the first three months of the year from the same period in 2020, a government report showed Friday. That was much faster than economists or the government forecast.
Global demand for semiconductors and other electronic components has fueled a surge in exports with overseas shipments rising to a record $35.9 billion in March. A government index of forward-looking data such as exports, industrial production and money supply indicates the economy is currently at its strongest since 1989 and is officially in boom territory.
The knock-on effect of the voracious overseas demand is a renewed momentum in local investment and domestic demand, which emerged as additional strong drivers of growth in the first quarter, according to Wu Pei-hsuan, senior executive officer of the Cabinet’s statistic department.
“When we forecast capital formation in February, we took into consideration that investment in the semiconductor industry in the first quarter of last year reached a new high, so we initially thought there’s no way it could exceed it this year,” Wu said at a briefing Friday. “But in the end, investment in the first quarter of this year exceeded our expectations by a long way.”