The nation’s machinery exports this year are estimated to grow between 5 and 10 percent from last year, backed by improving demand from major markets, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said yesterday.
“We have had a few tough years and now expect a rebound in machinery exports this year,” TAMI secretary-general Wang Cheng-ching (王正青) said by telephone.
Recovering demand from major customers since the fourth quarter of last year could help boost exports this year, Wang said.
He also gave an optimistic outlook for shipments to the US, the industry’s second-largest export destination, on the back of US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to revive the US manufacturing industry.
The nation’s machine tool exports are also forecast to grow in the second half of this year, the Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builders’ Association (TMBA, 台灣工具機暨零組件公會) said.
TMBA secretary-general Carl Huang (黃建中) said machine tool shipments in the first half of this year might be flat from a year earlier amid global uncertainties, but prospects should improve in the second half of the year.
“Clients are still observing the US’s new trade policies,” Huang said by telephone.
European demand should also help stimulate Taiwan’s machine tool exports in the second half, he said.
“Local companies should explore business opportunities outside China, as European countries are also major buyers in the global market,” he said, with Germany being the world’s third-largest market and Italy ranking sixth in 2015.
Last year, Taiwan’s machinery exports slid 1.7 percent annually to US$21.1 billion, with shipments to its biggest market — China — declining 2.7 percent to US$5.26 billion and those to the US edging down 0.9 percent to US$3.78 billion, TAMI data showed.
Machine tool exports fell 9 percent year-on-year to US$2.9 billion last year, with shipments to China sliding 5.3 percent to US$924.4 million, TMBA data showed.
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