Machinery exports to see 15% growth this year: TAMI

The resurging domestic machinery industry is looking up. According to Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI) chairman Alex Ko, the sector could see orders increase by 15% this year.

Taiwan's January machinery equipment export value reached USD$2.671 billion, a 33.4% YoY increase, Ko said, signaling the resurging growth from last year's Q4 has maintained its momentum into 2021.

YoY numbers look better this year due to last year's Chinese New Year holidays falling in January, Ko said, but export value still reached a historic high. Ko says this is a positive outlook for the industry, as it is less of short-term growth and more of a long-term trend.

TAMI numbers point to inspection machinery equipment exports at the top last month, raking in USD$372 million at 13.9% of the top three outbound products; electronic machinery ranked at second with USD$354 million at 13.3%, while machine tools ranked at third largest with USD$228 million in export output, making up 8.6%.

The top three destinations for Taiwan's exports are China (30.4%) at USD$813 million, the U.S. (21.2%) at USD$567 million, and Japan (6.7%) at USD$178 million.

As listed by TAMI, the top ten products all show double-digit growth, Ko said, with inspection machinery seeing a 69.1% uptick, followed by power transmission components at 60.4%, and machine tool parts at the highest with 70.5%. Ko also said last month the machine tool area's first indicator of positive growth since the pandemic outbreak began.

While the pandemic is still ongoing, the impact has lessened considerably, Ko said. However, the next challenge posed to the industry would be the shipping container shortage situation, which the chairman is urging government intervention to help companies mitigate the impact.