Taiwan consumer confidence soars in February
2015-03-04
Taiwan’s Consumer Confidence Index continued rising in February, moving up 1.21 points to 89.44 from the month before and recording improvements in most economic fundamentals.
Five of the overall benchmark’s six subindexes posted gains, reflecting bullish consumer sentiment for the first half of the year, according to the survey released March 2 by Taoyuan City-based National Central University’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development.
“Stock investment remained the biggest contributor to the encouraging result, up 5 points to 97.3,” RCTED Director Dachrahn Wu said. “With Taiwan’s economy set for steady improvement, strengthened investor confidence will help maintain momentum in the local bourse.”
Household finance came second with an increase of 1.6 points to 82.8, the best result since April 2012. This was followed by employment opportunities, which picked up 0.55 points to a record 114 and topped the 100-point mark for the 47th consecutive month.
Domestic economic outlook rose 0.5 points to 85.6, while consumer prices inched up 0.15 points to 50.65. Durable goods purchases was the sole decliner, down 0.5 points to 106.3 but above the 100-point optimism level for the 17th month in a row.
Conducted by phone Feb. 19-23, the national survey involved 2,430 randomly selected adults over the age of 20. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent.
Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=227837&CtNode=413)