Taiwan Trade Surplus Grows In May

(RTTNews) - Taiwan's foreign trade surplus increased in May as exports grew faster than imports, preliminary figures from the Ministry of Finance revealed on Friday.

The trade surplus rose to $6.05 billion in May from $4.98 billion in the corresponding month last year. Nonetheless, the surplus decreased somewhat from $6.46 billion in April.

Exports grew 3.5 percent year-over-year in May, though slower than the 4.3 percent gain in the prior month. Economists had forecast 9.5 percent growth.

Shipments of information, communication, and audio-video products jumped 62.4 percent annually in May, while those of parts of electronic products slid by 11.0 percent.

The annual growth in imports eased markedly to 0.6 percent in May from 6.6 percent a month ago. The expected increase was 6.0 percent.