TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s export-dependent economy slipped into recession in the first quarter and shrank by a worse rate than expected, hit by a drop in exports due to slowing global tech demand amid broader economic woes.
For the January-March period, annual gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 3.02% from a year earlier, following a contraction of 0.41% in the previous quarter, preliminary data from the statistics agency showed on Friday.
That was worse than a fall of 1.25% predicted in a Reuters poll.
Quarter-on-quarter, the economy contracted 6.37% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate.
First-quarter exports dropped 19.17% from a year earlier in U.S. dollar terms, the agency said, hit by high global inflation, the war in Ukraine and generally weaker demand worldwide.
(Reporting by Jeanny Kao and Faith Hung; Editing by Ben Blanchard & Simon Cameron-Moore)
