Feb export orders 10.4 yy vs 1.3 Reuters poll forecast
Orders from China 5.5 yy vs 28.0 in prior month
Ministry sees March orders between 0.9 and 5.2 yy
Ministry sees higher possibility for positive growth in Q2

TAIPEI, March 20 Reuters Taiwan39;s export orders fell in February as fewer working days during the Lunar New Year holiday limited productivity, with the outlook clouded by geopolitical uncertainty and high interest rates despite robust demand for AI applications.

Export orders last month fell 10.4 from a year earlier to 37.73 billion, hit by a sharp drop in orders from China and the United States. That missed a 1.3 gain forecast in a Reuters poll. Orders had edged up 1.9 in January.

Orders for goods from Taiwan, home to tech giants such as chip manufacturer TSMC, are a bellwether of global technology demand.

Demand for new tech applications continued to rise, offsetting part of the overall decreases, the economy ministry said in a statement.

This year the weeklong Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in the Chinesespeaking world, fell in February. In 2023, the Lunar New Year holidays fell entirely in January.

Orders for madein Taiwan servers, many of which are powering the artificial intelligence AI revolution, increased for an eighth month in a row in February, the ministry added.

Looking ahead, the ministry said it expects that export orders in March would rise between 0.9 and 5.2 from a year earlier, and that there was a higher possibility…