Economic Growth Rate in Taiwan to Hit New LowAccording to a report publicized by the "Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research" (CIER) of Taiwan recently, its economic growth rate of this year is estimated to be 4.57 percent only, much lower than 5.25 percent as forecasted by the local authority, setting a new record low since 1982.As the report pointed out the first quarter of this year saw an economic growth rate of 3.69 percent only, nearing the lowest rate during the Asian Financial Crisis. Furthermore, it would perhaps fall below 4 percent if the political situation in the island province remains in a continuous turmoil with no improvement. The CIER shows that the drop of economic growth rate is mainly ascribed to the decrease of civil consumption and investment, entire decline of manufacturing, investment, employment and financial markets. As predicted by the report, the civil consumption growth rate of this year would be 3.5 percent, much lower than the average growth rate of 5.5 percent in previous years, and the investment growth rate is 2.28 percent only. By PD Online Staff Deng Gang |
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