HONG KONG: Taiwan's exports fell by an unprecedented 44.1 percent last month as a result of global demand for its computer chips, laptops and mobile phones plunging, media reports quoted the island's government as saying yesterday.

The island shipped $12.37-billion worth of goods in January, down $9.76 billion from a year earlier, marking the fifth-consecutive monthly decline, the "ministry of finance" said.

"January exports were slightly better than our forecast, possibly because some factories received last-minute orders during the month," said Cheng Cheng-mount, an economist at Citigroup. "But the rate of decline was still very big, and we estimate single-month exports during the first quarter won't be good."

Economists had earlier predicated that Taiwan might post a 48 percent decline in January exports.

January's imports fell 56.5 percent from a year ago to $8.97 billion, marking the fourth-consecutive monthly decline, the "ministry" said.

Last month, exports to the mainland and Hong Kong fell 58.6 percent from a year earlier to $3.71 billion, shipments to the US lost 26.5 percent from a year ago to $1.95 billion, and sales to Japan shed 17.9 percent, year-on-year, to $1.12 billion.

According to May Tieying, an economist at DBS, consumer confidence has nearly hit bottom since the global crisis started last year.

"The numbers are weaker than last month, but not as bad as what most analysts were expecting," Ma said. "We're starting to see some indication that the economy has started to bottom out. There will still be a decline in the export figures, but we won't see things get much worse from now on."

In December, the island's exports fell 41.9 percent and imports dropped 44.6 percent, year-on-year.

However, Taiwan's trade surplus in January rose $3.40 billion, compared with $1.86 billion a year earlier.

Exports of Taiwan-made electronic products fell 45.3 percent from a year earlier, while exports of base metals and related products were down 43.6 percent, and exports of plastic and rubber products were 44.7 percent lower.

Analysts said the lunar new year holiday may have exaggerated the exports drop because the holiday occurred in January this year rather than February, when it fell last year.

"We need to get the January and February numbers to form a clear picture of the trend, because of the lunar new year holiday distortion," said Prakash Sakpal, an economist at ING Financial Markets.

Last week, South Korea reported a record 32.8 percent drop in exports last month, putting more pressure on its central bank to further cut rates to shore up the economy.

(HK Edition 02/10/2009 page16)