The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research forecasts that the business indicators for August 2011 are likely to show a downgraded yellow blue light amid a gloomy global economy.

Mr Gordon Sun, deputy director of the economic forecasting center at TIER, an independent non profit research organization, said that the August to September period is usually a busy export season, but the debt crises in the United States and Europe have made the situation chaotic.

According to TIER, high tech exports to the Western Hemisphere decreased in August compared with the same time last year. Meanwhile, the tight monetary policy in China has affected exports to China, mostly in the traditional industries of cement and construction.

TIER projected that the August report would show a downgraded yellow blue light, although the business indicators for July released by the Council for Economic Planning and Development last month continued to flash an optimistic green light for the fifth consecutive month.

TIER said that among the nine components of the overall indicator, the stock prices index, the industrial production index and the customs cleared exports index are likely to drop one notch.

The institute made the forecast in the run up to the release of the monthly business indicators on September 27th 2011 by the CEPD.

(Sourced from www.chinapost.com.tw)