TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S export orders in November fell by a record 28.51 per cent to US$22.8 billion (S$32.9 billion), as demand for technology products plunged, the economic ministry said on Tuesday.

The fall compared with a decline of 5.56 per cent in October, the ministry said.

Figures showed industrial output in November fell 28.35 per cent from a year earlier - also a record decline.

Orders from the United States fell a record 29.29 per cent in November to US$5.36 billion; orders from China and Hong Kong together plunged by 45.38 per cent to US$4.55 billion, the second biggest monthly decline ever, bettered only by a 50 per cent drop in March 1986, said Mr Huang Ji-shih, director of the ministry's statistics department.

'There is clearly a domino effect in the world. As demand from the United States shrinks, that hurts China's exports, and consequently Taiwan's,' he said.

Manufacturing production, the biggest component of the island's industrial output, fell 28.95 per cent from a year earlier.

Within manufacturing production, output in the information and electronics sectors fell 29.09 per cent, the ministry said.

In 2007, Taiwan's export orders increased 15.54 per cent and industrial output grew 7.77 per cent.

Orders for precision products, like liquid crystal display panels, fell 51.12 per cent from a year earlier to US$1.40 billion US. Orders for electronics products declined 27.69 per cent on-year to US$5.30 billion, the ministry said. -- AFP