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Financial palpitations and declining demands tally up global uncertainties
TIER adjusts forecast for Taiwan GDP growth downward |
Referring to leading indicators issued by major global agencies, we may again conclude that the world demands are shrinking still with palpitations in financial markets and other signs of headwinds. As a result, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) renewed its forecast for Taiwan's economic growth rate for 2019 on 25th January. The rate is now predicted to be 2.12% representing 0.08 percentage points lower than TIER's previous outlook.
Taiwan's exports in December 2018 decreased by 3.04% compared with the same month of 2017. Regarding imports, Taiwan's imports in December 2018 increased by 2.23% compared with imports in December 2017. Exports and imports grew by 5.92% and 10.55% y-o-y respectively from January 1st till the end of last year, Taiwan's exports and imports gave a trade surplus of US$ 49.41 billion or a decrease by 14.79% on a y-o-y basis for the entire year.
Taiwan's consumer price index (CPI) dipped by 0.31% in December 2018 compared with the same month of previous year. The core inflation rate excluding prices of the energy and food grew by 0.52% in December, 2018. In addition, the wholesale price index (WPI) moved up by 0.83% in December 2018 on the year-on-year basis. On the cumulative basis, the CPI went up by 1.35% and WPI went up by 3.64% throughout the entire year of 2018 compared with the previous year.
As for exchange rate, the NTD similar to all other major currencies in the world went somewhat stronger due to the relatively weaker USD, as the Fed is likely to turn more dovish in the future. Anyway, the NTD/USD stood at 30.733 in late December 2018 indicating a 0.38% appreciation. ...Read more |
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| Coaches, referees to learn English: sports authority |
| The Sports Administration said that starting this year it would help sports associations incorporate English courses on sports terminology into their training seminars for coaches and referees in line with the government’s policy to turn Taiwan into a bilingual nation by 2030. The courses for coaches and referees would be different, the agency said. The courses aim to help local coaches and referees obtain certificates from international sports associations, so that their skills can match those of their foreign counterparts, it said. (Source: Taipei Times) |
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Taiwan Economic Research Monthly
The trend of world economy in 2019 |
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Embracing the new economic era
 Artificial intelligence is coming! Since the concept of artificial intelligence was proposed by John McCarthy in 1955, it has gradually extended to the propagation algorithm, deep learning, machine learning, multi-level neural network. In 2016, Google's AlphaGo defeated the human chess king through the deep learning, the masterpiece of artificial intelligence. This article explores the reversal of the new wave of the new era, and outlines the block chain that is linked to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. At the same time, through the sharing of economic operations, the integration of new technologies will accelerate the key to economic transformation.
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