June 13, 2006
The office of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) has raised its yearly economic growth rate projections by 0.06 percentage points to 4.31% in its latest economic forecast.
The slight rise is attributed to favorable projections for the global economy, as well as growth in Taiwan exports, said Hsu Jan-yau, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics.
Although consumer growth has been lower in comparison with recent years -- dropping slightly to 2.96% -- other economic indicators are satisfactory with increased investment in optoelectronics and DRAM, said Hsu.
The bureau also announced that the unemployment rate in April dropped to 3.78%, the lowest in six years.
Huang Jiann-jong, an official at DGBAS, said that the declining rate pointed to a labor market on the upswing, adding that April marks six continuous months that the jobless rate has remained under 4%. The employment rate in Q1 2006 grew by 1.58% over the previous year.
In other statistics, DGBAS has lifted its forecast rates on private investment growth from February's 2.4% to 3.6%, and raised its export growth forecast for 2006 to 8.7% from its original projection of 7.7% in February.
(Central News Agency, United Daily News)
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