TAIPEI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's manufacturing sector continued to shrink in the second quarter of this year, the island's economic authority said.
The contraction remained for two quarters in a row. And the total production value of the island's manufacturing sector from April to June was 3.32 trillion new Taiwan dollars (about 106 billion U.S. dollars), down 4.57 percent from a year earlier.
Despite declines in production across various industries within the sector, production value of the computer and electronic goods and optical components industry surged 20.93 percent, the highest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2011.
Among the traditional industries, the production value of chemical raw materials sector dropped 14.79 percent from a year earlier, on the back of falling crude oil prices on the international market.
The authority expects that economic production will gradually recover in the second half of this year.
