With fewer Taiwanese exports headed to China, Taiwan’s dollar is feeling the crunch. From Bloomberg:
Changshu Shengtian Knitting & Clothing Co. in China stopped ordering cloth from Taiwan this year and began buying less-expensive local fabric because “there’s no sign of even a slight increase in overseas orders this year,” said Tang Zhenya, a salesman at the company in the eastern city of Changshu. “So we turned back to cheaper mainland suppliers.”
China’s customs bureau reported that imports from the rest of Asia plunged to $43 billion in December, from a record of $70 billion in July. Asian countries that depend on exports to their neighbors will suffer the most from the 39 percent collapse in the trade, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, which predicted last week that Taiwan and Singapore’s economies will shrink at least 10 percent this year.
