A Report for Current Status of Taiwanese Machinery Industry in July 2008
By Mr. C. C. Wang
Vice President, TAMI
From January to July 2008, the export of Taiwanese machinery showed a 10.3% growth and imports increased by 53%.
1. Taiwanese Machinery Exports Categorized by Product
According to customs statistics, form January to July 2008, the export value of Taiwanese-made machinery amounted to US$ 10 billion, which showed am increase of 10.3% comparing to the same period in last year. Following is the ranking of the major exported products. Machine tools ranked first with the export amount of US$ 2.2 billion and grew by 17.3%. Special function machines were second, whose export amounting to US$ 800 million with a 17.4% growth. Plastic and rubber machinery ranked third with the export amount of US$ 649 million with an increase of 12.9% when comparing with the same period in last year. Refer to table 1 for details.
2. Taiwanese Machinery Exports Categorized by Countries
From January to July 2008, the export value of Taiwanese-made machinery to China and Hong Kong reached US$ 2.9 billion, sharing 28.7% of the total exports, indicating a 1.4% growth comparing with the same period in the last year. China and Hong Kong ranked first for Taiwanese machinery export. Following, the US ranked second with the export amount of US$ 15.6 billion. This shared 15.0% of the total exports and indicated a decrease of 1.3%. Japan ranked third with the amount of US$ 577 million. This shared 5.8% of the total export value and indicated an increase of 3.5% compared to last year.
Exports to Asia and Europe are increasing. Vietnam ranked fourth, Germany fifth and Thailand ranked sixth. Following are Indonesia, Malaysia India and Italy. Refer to Table 2 for details.
3. Taiwanese Machinery Imports Categorized by Products
According to customs statistics from January to July 2008, the import value of machinery reached US$ 11.5 billion. This number showed a 5.3% increase. Major imported machinery is ranked as following: Special-purpose machines, mainly applied in high-tech industries such as semi-conductor and 3C, ranked first with US$ 3.3 billion, sharing 29.1% of the total value and increased by 7.2%. Machine tools ranked second with an import amount of US$ 1.1 billion which shared 9.5% of the total and decreased by 28.2%. Following were fluid machines, ranking third with the import amount of US$ 619 million, 5.4% share of the total and a growth of 6.5% comparing to the same period in last year. Refer to Table 3 for details.
4. Taiwanese Machinery Imports Categorized by Countries
According to customs statistics from January to July 2008, Japan and the US were the major sources of machinery imported into Taiwan. Japan ranked first with the import value of US$ 4.9 billion which was 42.1% of the total import value and indicated a 5.9% growth. The US ranked second with the imported amount of US$ 2.6 billion and 22.8% share of the total. This indicated a 9.4% decrease. China and Hong Kong ranked third with the imported value of US$ 1.2 billion. This shared 9.6% of the total import amount and showed a 30.0% growth. Refer to Table 4 for details.
