TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The blue light indicating a poor performance of the economy stayed in place for the 10th consecutive month in August, but the National Development Council (NDC) expressed optimism that the color would change during the fourth quarter, reports said Wednesday (Sept. 27).
Taiwan uses a five-color system to symbolize economic performance, with blue standing for contraction, yellow-blue representing sluggishness, green indicating stable growth, yellow-red referring to a warming economy, and red pointing to an overheated or booming economy.
Since Taiwan launched the lights system, the longest period with a blue light lasted 15 months from Dec. 2000 to Feb. 2002, Radio Taiwan International (RTI) reported. A 10-month run occurred in 2011 after the European financial crisis and in 2015 during a sluggish period for the technology sector.
The NDC noted that even though August saw a blue light again, the overall monitoring indicator for the month stayed at 15, its highest level for the past 10 months. The figure had been rising slowly but steadily since bottoming out at 10 in February.
The indicator for exports had improved from blue to yellow-blue, while the decline for manufacturing slowed down in August, the NDC said. The minor changes showed that an upturn is beginning to take shape, with an overall change in the color of the indicator likely during the final quarter of 2023, officials said.