The nation’s machine tool exports declined 16.2 percent last year to US$3.55 billion from US$4.24 billion the previous year because of the depreciation of the Japanese yen and an economic slowdown in China, the latest industrial data showed.
However, machine tool exports are likely to grow by 10 percent this year as there are fewer economic uncertainties and investment confidence is higher, Carl Huang (黃建中), secretary-general of the Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builders’ Association (TMBA), said by telephone yesterday.
Because of the depreciation of the yen, Japanese machine tool companies started giving larger discounts on their products in the second half of last year after they completed inventory adjustments, leading to a decline in Taiwanese machine tool exports to Southeast Asia, Huang said.
The nation’s machine tool exports to Thailand, the sector’s third-largest export destination, fell by 15.3 percent to US$225.35 million from US$265.97 million the previous year, while exports to Malaysia shrank 16.9 percent to US$92.09 million from US$110.76 million the previous year, according to the association’s data.
Exports to China, the sector’s largest export destination, also declined 20.3 percent to US$1.19 billion from US$1.49 billion the previous year, the data showed.
“Taiwanese and Chinese machine tool companies miscalculated the growth in China last year after its political transition,” Huang said.
A 4 trillion yuan (US$661 billion) investment plan initiated by the Chinese government after the financial crisis made a lot of companies move ahead with their investments, resulting in fewer investments last year, Huang said.
Machine tool exports to the US, the sector’s second-largest export destination, fell 24.5 percent to US$402.71 million from US$533.09 million the previous year, the data showed.
Huang said inventory levels of machine tools in the US are currently high because in 2011 and 2012 US companies imported a significant amount of machine tools due to tax reductions that ended at the end of 2012.
Demand from the aerospace industry in the US is strong, but Taiwanese machine tool companies do not have the technological know-how to make the related products, Huang said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained