Taiwan sees continued signs of economic sluggishness

TAIPEI -- Taiwan continued to show signs of a sluggish economy in April as indicated by the latest index gauging the business climate on the island Monday.

The composite index of monitoring indicators for April continued to flash the "yellow-blue light," despite a slight increase of 1 point from March to 21 points, suggesting the economy remained stuck between recession and growth, according to the island's economic planning authorities.

Taiwan's economy has been flashing the yellow-blue light since January 2019 after improving from a contraction in December last year.

Under Taiwan's five-color system to assess the economy, a blue light (9-16 points) indicates contraction, a yellow-blue light (17-22) means sluggishness, a green light (23-31) signals stable growth, a yellow-red light (32-37) suggests a warming economy and a red light (38-45) points to an overheated economy.

The leading indicator, which is composed of seven sub-indexes to predict changes in the economy, rose 0.85 percent from March to 102.47, with six sub-indexes improving after trend adjustment.

The coincident indicator, which reveals the current economic situation, fell for the 16th consecutive month in April to 97.16 from the previous month.