Taiwan's economy experiences the worst decline since the global financial crisis
As decreasing global demand put a stop to a pandemic-fueled trade boom, Taiwan's GDP unexpectedly fell last quarter, suffering its biggest decline since the global financial crisis.
According to preliminary data released by the Taiwan Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, gross domestic product decreased 0.86% from the same period last year.
That was the biggest percentage decrease since the third quarter of 2009 and the first decline since the start of 2016. Bloomberg questioned economists who predicted 1.2% growth.
According to Wu Pei-hsuan, a senior executive officer at Taiwan's statistics bureau, the fourth-quarter downturn is the greatest decline witnessed since the financial crisis, he said during a news briefing in Taipei.
In 2021, as the globe began to recover from the epidemic, economic development took off. Growth was fueled by Taiwan's booming exports of semiconductors and other goods at the time. But last year's economy was under strain as a result of rising inflation and skyrocketing interest rates, which slowed down worldwide consumption.
Taiwan's exports to China, one of its most significant economic partners, suffered as the second-largest economy in the world remained cut off from the majority of the rest of the world under Covid Zero. As infection spread and virus controls were abandoned, activity in China was also impeded in December.
According to Wu, exports to China and Hong Kong fell 15.6% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period last year.
Exports were obviously the cause of the economic slowdown, according to Ho Woei Chen, an analyst with United Overseas Bank Ltd. in Singapore. Private consumer demand, in contrast, experienced a decent rise.
The possibility of a technical recession in the first quarter exists, she continued, from the way things stand right now, we haven't seen the bottom.
According to the figures, the GDP increased by 2.43% overall in 2022. The Bloomberg survey predicted that the economy would expand by 2.9% for the entire year, thus this was somewhat worse than predicted. Since 2016, it had the weakest yearly pace of growth.
