News Briefing

        When the IMF released the “World Economic Outlook" on October 11, it predicted that global GDP in 2023 will be 2.7%, which is further revised from the 2.9% estimated in July. The report also indicates the possibility that we may not have seen the worst of it yet.

Impact Analysis

        The data released by the IMF revealed two important messages: (1) No matter whether the global average or major economies, the economic situation in 2023 may be more severe than that of 2022, and the continued downward revision this year also suggests that the global economy will continue to deteriorate. As such, an upward turn is hardly in sight at the moment; and (2) The figure for the United States, serving as the world leader in consumption, crawls past at the relatively low level of 1.0%, which is not exactly conducive to consumer products whose sales have been quite sluggish for a while.
        Even though the output value of the PCB industry in Taiwan is most likely to maintain its double-digit growth rate in 2022, more than half of the growth rate will be due to the depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar. In other words, if being calculated in original US dollars, the growth rate in 2022 would only fare mildly better than the average in the global economy. Therefore, if the current economic forecast is used as a benchmark for estimation, taking other factors out of the equation, growth momentum for PCB in 2023 should be weakened as well. Furthermore, should depreciation no longer be a factor, the growth rate of output value in terms of New Taiwan dollars will be significantly lower compared to that in 2022.