Machine tool exports may increase 20 percent

The volume of Taiwan’s machine tool exports is expected to increase 15 percent to 20 percent this year as market demand remains brisk, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI) forecasted yesterday.

Data TAMI shows that the volume of machinery exported by Taiwan amounted to US$15.43 billion last year, up 7 percent over the previous year.

Meanwhile, machinery imports dropped 1.2 percent to US$18.36 billion.

Of all the types of machinery exported by Taiwan last year, machine tools accounted for the largest sum at US$3.47 billion, representing growth of 17.1 percent from 2006.

TAMI Huang Po-chih (黃博治) noted that last year was fruitful for Taiwan’s machine tool industry.

The increase was attributed to the fast growth seen in Taiwan’s largest export markets, including China, North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia.

China Hong Kong were Taiwan’s largest machine tool consumers last year, with exports to the area increasing 14.8 percent from the previous year to reach US$1.28 billion.

China Hong Kong accounted for 36.9 percent of Taiwan’s total exports, TAMI data showed.

Exports the US rose 5.2 percent to amount to US$339 million last year, accounting for 9.8 percent of the total.

Exports Turkey climbed 10.1 percent to amount to US$167 million, accounting for 4.8 percent of the total.

According to Huang, Taiwan is one of only a few producers and exporters of machinery in the sub-tropical region.

Huang the value of machine tool exports by Taiwan ranked the fourth highest worldwide last year, behind only Germany, Japan and Italy.

On the outlook for this year, Huang predicted that demand would continue to increase in machine tool markets such as Europe, India, Brazil and Russia.