Manufacturing industry flashes "blue light" but vendors view positive

Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) announced the monitoring indicator of overall manufacturing industry increased by 0.26 points to 10.18 in February, which is fourth consecutive months of blue light has shown sign of recession.

Accorind to the report, nearly 70% of the manufacturers flashed "blue lights". However, TIER pointed out that as the trade tension between the US and China has eased, manufacturers hold a more optimistic outlook for the next 6 months.

TIER explained that since the global economic demand slowed down and manufacturers delivered the shipments in advance due to lunar new year, the index in FEB19, including import and export, export orders, production index and others, was sluggish compared to FEB18’s.

However, catalyzed by the rebound of Taiwan’s financial market and international oil prices at the beginning of the year, and the US-China trade tension eased, manufacturers hold a positive outlook for the next 6 months, lifting the performance of the business environment indicators.