Taiwan’s trade surplus will hit a new high above the US$70 billion mark in 2022 largely because of ongoing robust global demand for semiconductors, according to a Ministry of Finance (MOF) forecast.

Taiwan’s biggest trade surplus to date came in 2021 when it hit US$64.9 billion because of a strong performance by the electronic component industry, including semiconductor suppliers, according to the MOF in a recently released report by its statistics department,

The uptrend seen by the electronic component industry is expected to continue this year and push the trade surplus to another new high, the MOF said.

The importance of that product category was seen in Taiwan’s overall trade in 2021 with China/Hong Kong.

China/Hong Kong

China/Hong Kong has been Taiwan’s biggest export market and biggest source of imports, since 2013 and Taiwan’s overall trade surplus with that market has surged in recent years, reaching a high of US$104.7 billion in 2021, the MOF said.

Because many Taiwanese electronics companies have operations in China, the trade surplus in electronic components alone totaled US$79.4 billion in 2021, accounting for about 76 percent of the total.

Supporting the strong showing, according to the MOF, has been the push by leading Taiwanese semiconductor companies for the localization of the supply chain, which has strengthened Taiwan’s position in the global market.

Exports to U.S.

Taiwan’s second biggest trade surplus in 2021 was with the United States, totaling a record US$26.5 billion, as trade tensions between Washington and Beijing prompted U.S. buyers to shift their orders to Taiwanese exporters, the MOF said.

The United States was the biggest source of Taiwan’s trade surplus in the information/communications and audio/video device categories, the MOF said.

Those surpluses with China/Hong and the United States reflect Taiwan’s comprehensive semiconductor cluster and strong information communications technology development, according to the report, which expected China/Hong and the U.S. to remain the two top sources of Taiwan’s trade surplus in 2022.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel