Taiwan's Machine-tool Firms Raise Capital Spending in 2012

Taipei, Dec. 7, 2011 (CENS)--Despite the lingering European sovereign debt crisis, Taiwan's leading machine-tool manufacturers, including Fair Friend Group, Hiwin Technologies Corp., Goodway Machine Corp., Awea Mechantronic Corp. and Shieh Yih Machinery Industry Co., plan to increase capital spending in 2012, with the five firms to invest NT$8.15 billion to expand capacities.

C.C. Wang, president of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry, says Taiwan's machine-tool industry will have a promising 2012 with a 10% year-on-year growth in production, predicting many diverted orders from Thailand in the first quarter of 2012 due to the flood, as well as steady growth for the local machine tool and components makers as long as the European sovereign debt crisis is controlled.

To achieve NT$100 billion in sales by 2018, Fair Friend Group plans to invest US$350 million, or NT$10 billion, to expand capacities at home and abroad in the two years to come, also to acquire foreign companies or form joint-venture subsidiaries overseas.

Hiwin, the island's largest manufacturer of linear-motion devices and ball screws, aims in the short-term to become the world's second-largest manufacturer of such products, only behind the Japan-based THK, so will invest more than NT$2 billion to establish an operating headquarters in Taichung Precision Machinery Park and three plants in Yunlin Technology Park in 2012.

Both Goodway and Awea will invest NT$1 billion in 2012, NT$300 million of which to equip a new factory in Wujiang, Jiangsu province, China, which will begin mass production in the first quarter of 2012. In addition, the company will pay NT$500 million for land in the Dapumei Machinery Park in Chiayi County in 2012.

Shieh Yih will spend NT$150 million to expand its factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, China in 2012.