China News Service, Taipei, March 25 (Reporter Yang Chengchen) Sun Mingde, director of the Prosperity Forecast Center of the Taiwan Economic Research Institute (referred to as "Taiwan Economic Research Institute"), said in Taipei on the 25th that Taiwan's economy is overly dependent on the semiconductor industry, while the service industry has limited growth, causing people to I have no interest in the so-called "economic fruits".
The National Taiwan Institute of Economics held a press conference on the survey report on economic trends in March on the same day. According to the latest report, 11.7% of the manufacturing manufacturers surveyed were "optimistic" about Taiwan's economic prosperity in February, down 19.8 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, the steel industry was generally "pessimistic" and the electronic machinery industry was mostly "average", but " The proportion of "bullish" is higher than that of "bullish". In the service industry, the business climate index in February was 92.72 points, a slight decrease from the previous month.
The report also said that in February this year, the annual growth rate of Taiwan's Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased from 1.80% in January to 3.08%, a new high in the past 19 months; the annual growth rate of core CPI also rose, reaching 2.90%. In terms of the labor market, the number of people unemployed due to business contraction in their workplaces or dissatisfaction with their original jobs increased significantly in February compared with January, with the unemployment rate at 3.39%. In terms of salary income, because the Spring Festival holiday in 2023 is in January, the comparison with the base period is higher. The average total salary in January this year fell by 18.54% year-on-year.
On March 25, Sun Mingde, director of the Prosperity Forecasting Center of the Taiwan Economic Academy, said in Taipei that Taiwan’s economy is overly dependent on the semiconductor industry, resulting in people being indifferent to economic growth. Photo by China News Service reporter Yang Chengchen
A recent report by the Taiwan authorities' monetary policy authority stated that Taiwan's economic growth rate is better than the average of other economies, but ordinary people have no sense of "economic fruits" due to negative real wage growth. In this regard, Sun Mingde pointed out in response to inquiries that from the 1980s to the 1990s, Taiwan's economy grew rapidly and people received high salary increases. However, starting in 2000, Taiwan's industrial trend gradually changed to be dominated by capital- and technology-intensive manufacturing, which had a "very bad" effect on increasing people's wages.
He continued that most of Taiwan's current economic growth comes from the semiconductor industry, but the development of the semiconductor industry mainly relies on capital, machinery and equipment and innovative technology, and its employment demand is low. Employees working in semiconductor companies have high salaries, but it is difficult for people outside the park to get equal exposure to rain and dew, and the driving effect is not good. The service industry, which has a better driving effect, has seen very limited growth in recent years. (over)