Last month, export orders fell 1.5 percent year-on-year to $36.15 billion, but it was up 0.6 percent from July, the economic ministry said in a statement.

Orders from China, the island's leading export market, rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in the first increase since February, while orders from other major markets such as Japan and the United State were still down.

Month-on-month, exports orders from China were up 8.1 percent, the figures showed.

Orders from all Taiwan's export markets for precision machines and electronics rose 5.9 percent and 0.4 percent year-on-year, respectively, lifted mainly by growing demand in China, it said.

Taiwan's trade-dependent economy has been hit by shrinking demand in its major markets of China, the United States and Europe, particularly for its information technology and telecom goods.

Its economy shrank 0.18 percent year-on-year in the three months to June, the first contraction in nearly three years, due to weak exports.

The last time Taiwan saw a quarterly contraction was in the third quarter of 2009, when the economy shrank 1.41 percent from a year earlier.