TAIPEI, Taiwan: Highlighting its worst performance in 13 years, Taiwan's trade-dependent economy contracted in the fourth quarter, affected by declining exports on slowing global tech demand, the war in Ukraine and China's pandemic problems.

For the October-December period, annual gross domestic product contracted by 0.86 percent from the same period one year earlier, compared with 4.01 percent growth for the previous quarter, preliminary data from the statistics agency reported.

That was worse than an increase of 1.3 percent forecast in a Reuters poll, and the worst quarterly performance since the economy contracted 1.13 percent in the third quarter of 2009, when the world was caught in a financial crisis.

Compared with the previous quarter, Taiwan's economy contracted 4.24 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.

"External demand has weakened significantly," the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said, pointing to global inflation and interest rate increases suppressing demand and "the deterioration of the pandemic in mainland China interfering with consumption and production activities".

Taiwan's total fourth-quarter exports dropped 8.63 percent from in year earlier in U.S. dollars, the agency said.