TAIWAN’S economy is expected to have contracted for the first time in six years in the third quarter, as the island’s major export manufacturers stumble amid a slowdown on the Chinese mainland and slackening global demand.

    Taiwan’s July-September gross domestic product is forecast to have shrunk 0.6 percent from the same period a year earlier, a Reuters poll of 15 analysts showed, which would be the first year-on-year contraction since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. The economy grew 0.52 percent year on year in the second quarter.

    The risk of a recession also appears a touch-and-go affair, with analysts split on whether the economy contracted on a quarterly basis after GDP slumped 6.56 percent in the April-June quarter from the previous three month on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR).

    “The general economic profile remains vulnerable,” ANZ economists said in a recent note. “A broader and more sustainable growth will still rely on the recovery of the mainland, Taiwan’s largest trade partner.”

    A key supply-chain hub for high-tech products, Taiwan’s exporters have been badly exposed to the downturn in global demand with manufacturers that contract for global titans such as Apple Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. taking a hit.(SD-Agencies)