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Taiwan's Purchasing Managers' Index Posts 58.5% in July

2014/08/21 | By Judy Li

Taiwan's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) stood at 58.5% in July, staying above 58% for the third consecutive month, according to Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER).

“The PMI is not only a gauge of Taiwan's manufacturing sector, it is also an increasingly important reference for global think tanks in tracking Taiwan's business activity,” says C. S. Wu, president of CIER.

The improved PMI in July was due to an increase in new orders and improvements in employment and production. Among the sub-indexes, new orders stood at 62.3% and production at 62.2%, the latter holding above 60% for the fifth consecutive month. Meanwhile, the employment sub-index was up 2.4 percentage points from 56.8% a month earlier, standing at its second-highest-ever level of 59.2%.

Among the sub-indexes for Taiwan's six major manufacturing industries, that for the basic raw materials industry dropped to 48.9% in July while the other five industries all rose: the electronic & optical sub-index to 63.9%, the electricity & machine equipment sub-index to 60.5%, the transportation vehicles sub-index to 60%, the chemical & biomedical sub-index to 55.7%, and the food & textile sub-index to 52.9%. (JL)