New Transportation market report from Business Monitor International: "Taiwan Freight Transport Report Q4 2013"

Boston, MA -- (SBWire) -- 11/25/2013 --Another Downward Revision Of Taiwan Growth Forecasts

Over the past three months we have once more cut back our growth forecasts for Taiwan. We now expect GDP growth of 2.1% this year (down from 3.0% previously) and 3.0% in 2014 (down from 4.0%). There are two main reasons for the more conservative outlook. First, despite a promising recovery in foreign trade in June, BMI believes Taiwan remain very exposed to the economy of mainland China, which continues to show progressive weakness. We are also concerned that China's 12th Five Year Plan suggests much tougher competition for Taiwan's semiconductor and flat-panel manufacturing sectors. While the ASEAN region may provide further support to trade in the quarters ahead, China's weakness and the adverse effects on Taiwan are likely to win out. Second, the domestic economy has also been soft. Industrial production has been in contraction and retail sales growth is on a downtrend. On the plus side, we expect a return in investments from mainland-based Taiwanese businesses, which will boost the island economy, but this process will take some time, and we have not yet seen hard evidence of it in the data.

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In line with the more modest macro-economic recovery and slower trade growth we now expect bulk tonnage to fall slightly at key port such as Kaohsiung and Keelung, while container handling will increase, also marginally. Airfreight, rail, and road haulage will all register small increases.

Headline Industry Data

- 2013 airfreight tonnage is expected to grow by 2.2% to 1.164mn tonnes.
- 2013 rail freight is forecast to edge up by 1.1% to 14.051mn tonnes.
- Maintaining a three-year run of positive growth, 2013 road freight is forecast to increase by 2.5% to 669.325mn tonnes.
- 2013 Port of Kaohsiung tonnage throughput forecast to contract by 2.5% to 117.737mn tonnes, over the mid-term to 2017 we project an annual average increase of 0.7%.
- Port of Keelung will see tonnage falling by 2.0% in 2013, to 68.014mn tonnes.
- 2013 total trade is forecast to rise by 1.8% in real terms, compared to a fall of 0.9% in the preceding year.

Key Industry Trends

More Cross-Straits Flights On The Way: In August, the Taiwan government announced an additional 54 direct weekly passenger across the straits to mainland China, bringing the total to 670. The new services included up to 12 flights a week between Taiwan's Kaohsiung International Airport and Shanghai's Pudong Airport. More flights between Pudong and Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport are also expected to be introduced in December. The new flights were agreed in negotiations with the mainland. Taiwan and mainland China also agreed increase the number of nonstop cargo services from 56 to 68 per week and open three new freight destinations in mainland China including Tianjin , Zhengzhou and Ningbo , with up to two weekly flights per city.

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