Amid weak demand from China, Europe and Japan, Taiwan said on Monday that export orders in July fell 4.4% year-on-year, the fifth monthly decline in a row.
Export orders came in at $35.94 billion last month, down $1.65 billion from a year ago, the economic ministry said.
Orders from China, the island's leading export market, dropped 5.5% year-on-year while orders from Japan and Europe fell 5.4% and 4.7% respectively.
Taiwan's trade-dependent economy has been hit by shrinking demand in its major markets of China, the United States and Europe, particularly for its signature information technology and telecom products.
Its economy shrank 0.18% year-on-year in the three months to June, the first contraction in nearly three years, due to weak exports.
The last time Taiwan saw a quarterly contraction was in the third quarter of 2009, when the economy shrank 1.4% from a year earlier.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012
