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.
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