DGBAS Raises Taiwan's 2014 Economic Growth Forecast to 3.41%

Taiwan's Directorate General of Budget, Accounting & Statistics (DGBAS) lately raised its forecast on Taiwan's economic growth this year to 3.41%, up 0.43 of a percentage point from 2.98% predicted in May and exceeding the goal of 3.2% for the year.

M.T. Sun, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting at Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER), indicates that Taiwan's economic growth in the first half (H1) of this year stood at 3.49%, so it's reasonable for DGBAS to raise its prediction for the full year.

In addition DGBAS has updated the economic growth in Q1 and Q2 to 3.24% and 3.74%, respectively, also predicting Q3 growth at 3.62% and Q4's at 3.08%. It has also raised the prediction on the consumer price index (CPI) growth this year by 0.11 of a percentage point to 1.64% due mainly to rising food prices.

Taiwan's economic performance in H1 was better than expected and the island's business climate in H2 is seen to be favorable, driven by the launches of  iPhone6 and notebooks and personal computers that are expected to trigger replacement purchases.

DGBAS believes that next year's economic growth will be better than this year's and predicts 2015's economic growth to be 3.51%. (JL)

Prediction for Taiwan's Economic 2014 Growth
Forecast institution	Time of prediction (2014)	Economic growth (%)
DGBAS	August	3.41
TIER	July	3.28
Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research	July	3.15
Academia Sinica	July	3.31
Taiwan Research Institute	June	3.1
Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute	June	3.18

Source: the said institutions