Taipei (Reuters) – Taiwanese exports increased more than expected in January, thanks to the demand of artificial intelligence and companies that received orders before Donald Trump took over the US president and started charging trade tariffs.
The export increased by 4.4% from the same month to $ 38.71 billion a year ago, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday, beating a 3.5% forecast in Reuters survey. Increasing, lower than December of 9.2%, marked 15.
Taiwanese companies like TSMC, the largest contract manufacturer of the Agreement, are the main suppliers of Apple, Nvidia and other technological companies.
Ministry of Officer Beatrice Tsai said that the export of journalist was better last month than expected because of AI, and because companies received orders before Trump took his duty on January 20th. Trump has since imposed tariffs on China – the biggest commercial partner in Taiwan – even though they paused them at Canada and Mexico.
With the exception of the last week of January, when Taiwan was on vacation for a lunar New Year’s break, exports increased for a third compared to the same period a year ago, Tsai ranked very rarely seen.
Although the Ministry, accompanied by a statement, said that the tariffs and other geopolitical risks represent quite an uncertainty for this year, Tsai said that this year the officials remained generally positive about export swing.
In February, the Ministry expects exports to increase between 16% and 20% of the year.
In January, Taiwan exports to the United States increased by 0.7% annually to $ 8.46 billion, compared to 16% profit in the previous month.
Export to China, the largest trade partner in Taiwan, contracted 11.7%, opposite the jump of 3.6% in December.
The total export of electronic components in Taiwan increased 3.1% in January in the year at $ 14.0 billion, and semiconductor exports are an increase by 4.2%.
Imports dropped 17.2% to $ 28.74 billion, worse than an economist forecast for a profit of 0.7%.
(Reporting Faith Hung and Jeanny as; Mounting Ben Blanchard and Andrew Cawthorne)
