A near-balanced fiscal position sat beside a large external surplus in 2024.
Fiscal and current-account balances answer different saving questions. Taiwan’s 2024 external surplus was large even as the public-sector balance was close to flat, separating the national saving surplus from a simple budget-deficit story. The comparison points to the private and corporate-sector role behind Taiwan’s external balance.
Source 1: Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs / Swiss representations
Publisher: Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs / Swiss representations
Units: percent; US$ billion
Source 2: Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Publisher: Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Units: percent; US$ million; NT dollars
The current-account ratio differs slightly across sources because one table reports an external-data ratio and CBC’s annual report gives 14.3% for the current-account surplus. Keep both visible as a source-consistency caveat.
Use the Swiss official economic report’s 2024 fiscal-balance and current-account ratios, then show CBC’s 14.3% current-account-to-GDP figure as a same-country official reference point. Values are percentage points of GDP.
Taiwan top-country trade-balance map without map
In 2025 Taiwan ran a US$150.1B surplus with the U.S. and a US$37.0B deficit with Korea.
Taiwan GNI per capita versus GDP per capita, 2024
Gross National Income (GNI) per resident exceeded GDP per resident by about US$1.1k in 2024.
Taiwan’s 5 largest methanol suppliers
Saudi Arabia supplied US$165.6M, or 42.2%, of Taiwan’s 2024 methanol imports.