Sept export orders 4.6 yy vs 6.8 Reuters poll forecast
Orders from China 3.6 yy vs 2.6 in prior month
Ministry sees Oct orders between 1.2 and 5.0 yy

TAIPEI, Oct 21 Reuters Taiwan export orders fell short of expectations for September, losing some steam ahead of the year39;s end as it remained buoyed by the artificial intelligence wave but ran into faltering demand from top trading partner China.

Export orders last month rose 4.6 to 53.79 billion from a year earlier, the economics ministry said on Monday. That missed both the 6.8 gain forecast in a Reuters poll and August39;s 9.1 expansion, but marked the seventh month in a row of expansion.

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

Businesses continued to expand thanks to AI, highperformance and cloud computing, a ministry statement said.

The ministry expects export orders momentum to be sustained as new applications keep rolling out, boosting demand for semiconductors and servers, the statement said. Consumer electronics products will enter the traditional hot season in the second half of the year, it added.

The ministry said it expects export orders in October will increase between 1.2 and 5.0 yearonyear.

Taiwan39;s orders in September for telecommunications products were up 7.0 from the prior year, while electronic products rose 10.5 from a year earlier.

But overall orders from China fell 3.6 versus a 2.6 expansion the…