Taiwan stock market soars but fails to boost domestic demand, growth of catering industry slows down significantly

Source: Ministry of Economic Affairs

[Reporter Gao Jiahe/Taipei Report] Taiwan stocks have hit new highs repeatedly in the past two years, but the "wealth effect" has not spread to the domestic catering market. According to the latest statistics, Taiwan's catering industry has experienced explosive growth for two consecutive years after the epidemic, and after the overall revenue exceeded one trillion yuan, the growth momentum has obviously "braked". Compared with the 75.9% increase in the Taiwan stock market in the first eight months of this year, the overall revenue of the catering industry has only grown by 3.7%. If the "price increase" factor is taken into account, the catering industry has almost stood still.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the turnover of Taiwan's catering industry will post ultra-high growth rates of 19.1% and 20.4% respectively in 2022 and 2023. In 2023, it will exceed the trillion yuan mark for the first time. However, the annual growth rate will shrink to 3.6% in 2024, 2.9% in 2025, and only increase by 3.7% from January to August 2026.

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In comparison, the Taiwan stock issuance-weighted stock price index will average 21,382 points in 2024, climb to 23,918 points in 2025, and surge to an average of 39,219 points from January to August 2026, a 75.9% increase from the same period last year. It shows that although people's financial book assets are expanding rapidly, they are indifferent and conservative when it comes to consumer spending such as dining out.

Dismantling the structure of the catering industry, the core "restaurant industry" accounting for nearly 80% (the cumulative structural ratio in the first eight months was 79.6%), is the main reason for the brakes on the overall momentum. After the restaurant industry soared by more than 20% in both 2022 and 2023, it plummeted to 2.9% in 2024 and only 1.7% in 2025. Even though the Taiwan stock market soared in the first eight months of this year, the cumulative annual growth rate of the restaurant industry was only 2.7%, which means that even if the Taiwan stock market made huge profits, daily and dining consumption in restaurants has become saturated.

Not only is the catering industry indifferent to the Taiwan stock market effect, but other domestic demand and tourism indicators also reflect similar stagnation. Although the number of tourists visiting Taiwan has rebounded from 7.85 million in 2024 to 8.57 million in 2025, the "catering revenue" of tourist hotels in the same year has completely stagnated, remaining at 26.9 billion yuan for two consecutive years.

Looking into the reasons behind it, the number of marriage couples dropped from 123,061 couples in 2024 to 104,376 couples in 2025. From January to August this year, it continued to fall by 9.5% compared with the same period last year. This shows that the business opportunities brought by the increase in the number of international tourists have been significantly offset by the sharp decline in the number of Chinese marriage couples.

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