The Ministry of Finance is set to publish July’s trade figures on Monday. The statistics are expected to show continued gradual recovery in Taiwan’s exports of electronic products, hopefully ending 17 successive months of contraction.
An official from the ministry said that the state of the semiconductor market and the fact that prices of agricultural and industrial raw materials have kept flat meant that June’s exports showed a contraction of 2.1%. This was the smallest year-on-year decline since February 2015.
As for hopes of figures recovering further in the third quarter of the year, the key factors to watch will be the continued recovery of electronics exports and reducing negative growth in the exports of key mineral products.
Liang Kuo-yuan, head of the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute, pointed to the upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone 7 in the fall. Liang said it will be worth watching to see if the new model’s release can have the same booster effect for Taiwan’s economy as the release of the iPhone 6 two years ago.