Taiwan economy maintains steady growth

Taiwan's economy continued to grow in October, with economic indicators of business activity signaling moderate growth by flashing a "green" light for a ninth consecutive month, the island's authority said on Thursday.

The total score of the monitoring indicators in October decreased by three points to 24 from the previous month, Taiwan's development council said in a statement.

Among the nine component indicators, the TAIEX (a capitalization-weighted index of all listed common shares traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange) average closing price lost one point, changing its individual light signal from "yellow-red" to "green" while two other indexes concerning customs-cleared exports and the manufacturing sector each lost one point for turning from "green" to "yellow-blue" lights.

The light signals for the rest six components remained unchanged, according to the statement. Taiwan's customs-cleared exports have been affected by the falling oil price in the world market, with prices of its export petrochemical products following suit, said Wu Ming-hui with the development council.

A color code is used by the island to gauge economic health, with red signaling economic boom, green for steady growth and blue for recession.