Reply #47: Taiwan's economy shrinks [View All]

Taipei: Taiwan's economy shrank an unprecedented 10.24 per cent last quarter as exports fell and businesses cut spending, a decline that may mark the trough in the island's recession.

The drop follows the fourth quarter's revised 8.61 per cent contraction from a year earlier, and is the biggest slump since official records began in 1952, the statistics bureau said in Taipei today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists was for a 9.26 per cent decrease.

Taiwan's stock index rose to the highest in almost nine months today on optimism China's fiscal stimulus and closer relations with the mainland may help ease the economy's slump.

/. http://www.godubai.com/gulftoday/article.asp?AID=23&Section=Business

There's an awful lot of fundamentally misguided wishful economic thinking out there.