Press Release
Council for Economic Planning and Development
January 31, 2012

In December 2011, Taiwan Business Indicators indicated that the economy has entered a phase characterized by significant downside risks and fragility. Among the indicators compiled by the Cabinet’s Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), the annualized six-month rate of change of leading index increased by 0.8 points, the trend-adjusted coincident index decreased by 1.4% from the previous month, and the overall monitoring indicator flashed the "blue" signal.
1. Leading Indicators: With revised data, the composite leading index stood at 128.3, up by 0.5% from November. Its annualized six-month rate of change increased by 0.8 points to 2.2%. Among the seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, index of producer's inventory for manufacturing (inverted), building permits, SEMI book-to-bill ratio, and index of export orders had positive cyclical movements from previous month. Average monthly overtime in industry and services, stock price index, and real monetary aggregates M1B had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
2. Coincident Indicators: With revised data, the coincident index stood at 127.0, down by 0.6% from November. Its trend-adjusted index decreased by 1.4% to 94.0. All seven indicators making up the trend-adjusted index had negative cyclical movements from previous month, which were the sales index of wholesale, retail and food services, electric power consumption, the industrial production index, real machineries and electrical equipments imports, real customs-cleared exports, index of producer’s shipment for manufacturing, and nonagricultural employment.
3. Lagging Indicators: With revised data, the lagging index stood at 144.8, up by 1.2% from November. Its trend-adjusted index rose by 0.4% to 107.2. Among the six indicators making up the trend-adjusted index, the manufacturing unit output labor cost index, inventories to sales ratio for manufacturing, interbank overnight call-loan rate had positive cyclical movements from previous month. Regular employees on payrolls in industry and services, unemployment rate (inverted), loans and investments of major financial institutions had negative cyclical movements from previous month.
4. The Monitoring Indicators: The total score in November was adjusted downward by one point to 16, following the revision of manufacturing sales and the overall light signal was adjusted from "yellow-blue" to "blue". The total score in December was down by 2 points to 14, flashing the "blue" signal for the second consecutive month. Among the nine components, direct and indirect finance, customs-cleared exports each lost one point and changed their individual light signals. The light signals for the rest of seven components remained unchanged.