Meanwhile, back in Taiwan... Economy Still in Doldrums, in case you hadn't noticed.

Rust.

The statistics bureau threw in the towel this week and sent the economic forecast below 2%...

The economy may grow by less than 2 percent for a second consecutive year after the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) yesterday cut its GDP growth forecast for this year to 1.74 percent.

The agency’s latest forecast is 0.57 percentage points lower than the forecast of 2.31 percent it made in August and is the lowest among domestic economic institutes.

Several trends -- less manufacturing here, more Chinese local production supplanting Taiwanese goods, lower exports to the US economy, whose elites have completely mismanaged it, and of course, the salary squeeze here in Taiwan means poor consumption growth. D'oh. The whole economy must suffer so a few wealthy people can accumulate far more than they can ever need or use.

Some observations on the state of Taiwan's manufacturing:

In October, the island's year-on-year exports declined for the second month, following a steep 7-percent drop in September .

Export orders, however, which are indicators of future demand, have risen for four consecutive months, including a better-than-expected 3.16-percent gain in October .

Orders from China, Taiwan's top export market, climbed 3.2 percent, while those from the United States registered a strong 9-percent gain on year-end holiday demand.

Taiwan's industrial output also gained over the past two months, despite having fallen in six months since the beginning of the year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

TIER offers a more pessimistic evaluation, however.

In October, Taiwan's exports totaled US$26.12 billion, down 1.5% from a year earlier, while its imports fell 1.3% year-on-year to US$22.6 billion.

TIER said that while Taiwan's manufacturing industrial production index — an indicator of real production output — and export orders for October picked up slightly, the positive leads were not strong enough to offset the impact from weak exports and imports.

In November, the pricing power sub-index — which measures the ability to profitably raise the market price of goods over marginal cost — rose 0.05 points and the demand sub-index rose 0.04 points, from a month earlier, while the business environment sub-index fell 0.72 points, the raw material investments sub-index fell 0.56 points and the costs sub-index 0.01 points, TIER said.

The President continues to flounder, having bet the farm on deeper economic relations with China, which have benefited only a few wealthy families and cross-strait organized crime. Next year are local elections....
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Daily Links:

• Excellent: Ben notes that observers now wonder when Beijing will lose patience with Ma. What does that imply about the Chen Administration and the media. 
• Cold snap claims over 30 lives.
• Ma Administration criticizes ADIZ. !!
• In a strange case, an infant is poisoned by putting salt in its formula.
• Taiwan orchid breeders falter in China

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