The nation’s machinery exports are this year estimated to grow 5 percent to 10 percent on the back of better market sentiment, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said yesterday.
“The growth momentum should be driven by increasing demand for machine tools and key components used in machinery equipment, such as ball screws,” TAMI machine tool committee chairman David Chuang (莊大立) said.
The industry has this year seen improving demand for machine tools in major markets, Chuang told a news conference in Taipei, referring to Turkey and India.
In the first quarter of this year, machinery exports rose 18.3 percent to US$6.43 billion, with machine tool exports increasing 19.1 percent annually to about US$820 million.
The machinery industry, one of Taiwan’s trillion-dollar businesses, aims to add NT$100 billion (US$3.34 billion) in output every year, local Chinese-language media quoted TAMI chairman Alex Ko (柯拔希) as saying yesterday.
Within the next decade, the sector could generate production value of NT$2 trillion per year, Ko said at the opening ceremony of the Taipei Intelligent Machinery & Manufacturing Technology Show.
The production value of Taiwan’s machinery industry last year reached NT$1.1 trillion, with exports climbing 21.1 percent to US$25.6 billion, TAMI data showed.
The industry, whose largest cluster surrounds Taichung’s Dadu Mountain (大肚山), has created more than 300,000 jobs, the data showed.
The development of the machinery industry has been given priority as one of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) policies to accelerate the transformation of the nation’s economic structure.
The Executive Yuan plans to create a machinery industry that is digitally interlinked and turn Taichung into a global hub for smart machinery.
Separately yesterday, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會), a government-backed trade promotion agency, said it plans to expand the size of next year’s Taipei International Machine Tool Show to attract more foreign buyers.
The two-yearly event is next year expected to be Asia’s largest and the world’s third-biggest trade show for machine tool manufacturers, TAITRA exhibition department executive director Thomas Huang (黃漢唐) said, adding that about 1,450 companies would join the event.
Participants would use 7,000 booths to display their products at the show, up from 5,430 booths last year, Huang told reporters.
The six-day event is to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall from March 4 to March 9 next year, TAITRA said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure