TAIPEI: Taiwan said Thursday its economy grew 10.82 percent in 2010, its fastest rate for 24 years, fuelled by rapid expansion in the island's main trading partner China. The data from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics is a slight improvement on the 10.47 percent growth initially announced last month and represents the strongest growth since 1986. The directorate also revised growth in the final quarter of 2010 upwards to 6.92 percent from the previous estimate of 6.48 percent. Economic expansion of 10.3 percent in the Chinese economy, now the world's second-largest, stoked mainland demand for Taiwanese-made products. “China played a role in bringing about last year's stellar growth,” said Antony Chang, an economist at Taipei's Shih Chien University. “Increased demand from the mainland helped offset lost momentum from the United States and Europe.” The finance ministry said earlier that exports jumped 34.8 percent to $274.64 billion last year, with those to China and Kong Kong hitting a record $114.75 billion, or 41.8 percent of the overall figure. The 2010 growth was made possible by the export sector's 25.59 percent increase, the highest since 1986 when it surged by 28.23 percent over the previous year, said Shih Su-mei, the head of the directorate. Also contributing to the better-than-expected economic performance was an active private sector, where investment soared 32.79 percent last year, the highest since 1965, Shih said. The directorate said it expects Taiwan's economy to grow 4.92 percent in 2011. – Agence France
