Taiwan's economy heated up in July as the job market gained some momentum, but leading indicators for the month dipped slightly, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said Friday. The monitoring indicator for the overall economy gained one point in July to rise to 38 points and flashed a red light, which signifies the economy is booming, the CEPD said. 'In general, the local economy still maintained steady growth, ' the CEPD said in a press release. Non-agricultural employment went from yellow-red to red in July as the job market improved, which helped tip the monitoring index's scale to red after being yellow-red the previous two months. The planning agency uses a five-color system to gauge the country's economic performance for any given month. Blue implies a sluggish economy, yellow-blue represents a slowdown, green indicates a stable economy, yellow-red means the economy is mildly overheated, and red signifies overheating. Taiwan's economy flashed a red light in the first four months of this year, and showed a yellow-red light in May and June. The index of coincident indicators, which reflect economic activity in the period measured, rose 1.0 percent to 124.0 in July, but the index of leading indicators, which gauge economic performance in three to six months, fell 0.2 percent from June to 117.6. Despite the small drop, the CEPD said it remained cautiously optimistic about the economy's prospects because strong growth in emerging economies will help maintain export momentum and government investment promotion drives are expected to spur private investment. Taiwan's economy grew 13.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter and 12.5 percent in the second quarter, the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics reported on Aug. 19. It revised its forecast for full-year growth upwards to 8.24 percent. The country's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell for the the 11th consecutive month to 5.17 percent in July, and the government has vowed to pull it below 5 percent by the end of the year. 