Machine tool exports continued to grow last month after a weak showing in the first quarter, a local industry group said on Saturday.
Last month’s exports of machine tools totaled US$320 million, up 1.1 percent from the previous month’s US$317 million, the Taichung-based Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builders’ Association said, citing preliminary government statistics.
The figure was by far the best monthly performance this year, but still weak compared with last year, the association said.
For the first five months of the year, machine tool exports were down 18.3 percent from last year to US$1.42 billion.
Association secretary-general Carl Huang (黃建中) maintained his previous forecast that the sector’s total output for the year will match last year’s level and that total exports will grow.
Machine tool exports will increase marginally to US$4.3 billion this year from US$4.23 billion last year, he said last month.
As long as orders from China — which buys more than 33 percent of the nation’s machine tools — stay strong, the industry will manage to maintain its momentum, Huang said.
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