Machinery exports grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to US$2.8 billion last month, the 11th consecutive month of growth, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (台灣機械公會) said yesterday.
In New Taiwan dollar terms, exports rose 26.2 percent last month from a year earlier, the association said, but added that a strengthening New Taiwan dollar is affecting the machinery industry’s competitiveness.
Since the beginning of this year, the NT dollar has risen by 2.03 percent against the US dollar compared with the yuan’s 1.07 percent increase, a 6.11 percent decline in the value of the won and the 5.87 percent fall in the value of the yen, the association said.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
“When it comes to price competition with Japanese and [South] Korean exporters we are already about 8 percent behind. This is not a positive development for machinery industry exports and is casting a shadow over future development,” the association said.
Taiwanese machinery makers are vulnerable to a strengthening NT dollar because they face direct competition from other companies in the region, Ministry of Economic Affairs Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Huang Wei-jie (黃偉傑) said.
“Some Taiwanese companies with products that are hard to replace, such as chipmakers, can pass on the exchange rate costs to their customers, but machinery makers have to compete on price with their Japanese and [South] Korean peers, and with the exchange rate not in their favor, their profit margins are cut,” Huang said.
However, the ministry has yet to see evidence of demand for Taiwanese machinery falling, he said.
“So far from our observations, orders are still strong,” he added.
In addition to unfavorable foreign exchange rates, the machinery sector is also facing shortages and higher prices of raw materials, the association said.
Logistical problems and lingering uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic are also challenges facing the sector, it said.
The association urged the government to prioritize vaccinations for machinery industry employees so that they can travel abroad to attend exhibitions, visit customers, and oversee the delivery and maintenance of equipment.
Machinery exports totaled US$18.56 billion in the first seven months of the year, up 28.1 percent year-on-year.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
RSS