With demand from the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors continuing to build, Taiwan’s machinery exports rose 18.6% year on year in January 2015 and machine tool exports rose 16.1%. The industry expected growth of around 10% for the full year in both categories.
Hsu Hsiu-tsang, chairman of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry, noted that machinery exports reached US$1.783 billion in January, up 18.6% year on year — NT$56.7 billion in local currency, up 25.7%. Machinery exports for the previous year had been US$20.88 billion, up 5.7%.
At 25.7% growth, machinery was Taiwan’s best performing export sector that month. Mainland China was the largest market at US$544 million, or 30.5% of the total and up 78.6% year on year, followed by the United States at US$281 million (15.8%) and Japan at US$112 million (6.3%). Machine tool exports specifically reached US$287 million in January.
Machinery imports also rose, up 6.7% to US$1.777 billion, a sign that domestic manufacturers were investing in and expanding their equipment. Hsu added that movements in the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, and in the Japanese and Korean currencies, would affect Taiwan’s competitiveness, and that manufacturers need to be able to take on rush and short-run orders and deliver.
Source: Taiwan machinery industry press coverage. The full article is available in Chinese on our Chinese site.
