Taiwan's steel, iron exports to China shrank 12.8% in Jan.

Taipei, March 31, 2004 (CENS)--Taiwan's exports of steel & iron products to mainland China suffered an annual decline of 12.8% in January, according to the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

The statistics released by BOFT showed that Taiwan's two-way trade with the mainland in January totaled US$3.948 billion, posting a double-digit growth of 22.7% from the same month of last year.

Taiwan's shipments to the mainland reached US$2.9 billion in January, up 19.3% from one year earlier and accounting for 24.5% of the island's total exports for the month. The island's imports from the mainland shot up 33.1% to US$1.048 billion. As a result, Taiwan enjoyed a trade surplus of US$1.853 billion, up 12.7%.

BOFT officials analyzed that Taiwan's thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel manufacturers, including AU Optronics Corp., Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd., and Hannstar Display Corp., actively moved their rear-end module plants to the mainland in the past couple years. As a result, Taiwan's imports of modules and related parts for TFT-LCD products from the mainland have obviously increased since the end of last year.

In the first month of the year Taiwan's imports of TFT-LCD modules and related parts from the mainland amazingly rose fiftyfold from the corresponding figure of last year. In the same month Taiwan's exports of optical products and related parts to the mainland also posted a whopping growth of 256.3%, which was mainly because of massive demand by Taiwan's TFT-LCD module plants there.

Influenced by the shortage of steel & iron materials, Taiwan's manufacturers of steel & iron products experienced a decline of 12.8% in exports to the mainland in January. Besides, Taiwan's exports of machinery equipment and related parts merely edged up 0.9% as Taiwan's motherboard makers have recently expanded their operations in the mainland to enhance production capacity there, and notebook personal computer makers in the mainland have increased their purchases of related parts from local suppliers.