China News Service, Taipei, March 27. The "Central University" Taiwan Economic Development Research Center announced on the 27th that Taiwan ’s consumer confidence index was 78.51 points in March, a decrease of 5.42 points from February, and the lowest since August 2017. The biggest indicator of decline was "the timing of investing in stocks in the next six months", the index hit a new low since February 2013.
According to Taiwan media reports such as the Central News Agency and the "Business Times", all six indicators, including price levels, household economic conditions, economic prosperity, employment opportunities, investment stock timing, and purchase timing of durable goods, fell in this survey. "Half-year investment stock timing" has the largest drop, down 11.8 points from last month to 53.7 points.
"Central University" Wu Tairen, executive director of the Taiwan Economic Development Research Center, pointed out that the epidemic had an impact on Taiwan, but it was not a comprehensive impact. Some manufacturing industries even benefited from the benefits of re-ordering and lack of work, so consumer confidence was affected. , But not too serious. However, in March, the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States increased rapidly, exacerbating financial market turbulence, dramatic changes in the international stock market, and Taiwan stocks once fell below 9,000 points, affecting people's confidence in investing in stocks.
Consumer confidence index between 100 and 200 is "biased optimistic", and between 0 and 100 is "biased pessimistic". Of the six indicators in this survey, only "the timing of buying durable goods in the next six months" showed "preferred optimism", and the remaining five were "preferred pessimistic".
The survey was conducted by computer random sampling and telephone interviews from March 19th to 23rd. A total of 2795 people aged 20 and over in Taiwan were interviewed. With a 95% level of confidence, the sampling error was positive or negative 2.0. Percentage points. (Finish)