Taiwan Machinery Exports Amount to NT$244.8 B. in First 5 Months of 2012

Taipei, June 13, 2012 (CENS)--Affected by Taiwan's sluggish exports to China, the machinery industry saw its exports for the first five months of this year edge down 0.1% from a year earlier to NT$244.8 billion, according to the latest statistics compiled by the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI).

If calculated in the U.S. dollar, the industry's exports for the same period amounted to US$8.2739 billion, representing an annual decline of 1.5%, according to TAMI's report. In May alone, the industry's exports dropped 1.6% year-on-year to NT$54.1 billion.

Noteworthy is that the industry has kept a comparatively good shape so far this year, compared to the petroleum and ICT (information communication technology) industries, which suffered a 10% and 18.5% drop, respectively, in their aggregate exports for the past five months.

TAMI indicated that the industry's export decline in the January-May period resulted partly from stronger New Taiwan dollar over Korean won against the greenback, and partly from the fact that its shipments to China plunged nearly 20% year-on-year in the period, compared to the fact that exports to the U.S. surged 9.4% to command a 15.3% share of the total.

TAMI stressed that should Taiwan succeed in convincing China into lifting tariffs on more imported machinery from the island during the bilateral negotiation over follow-ups of ECFA (Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement) by the end of this year, the industry is likely to achieve export revenue of between US$22 billion and US$23 billion for entire the year, for a 3-5% increase over 2011.

Taiwan Machine Tool Industry's Exports by Destination Country from Jan. to May, 2012
Ranking	Country	Export Value	Share	Year-on-Year Growth Rate
1	China + Hong Kong	US$2.4823 B.	30.0%	-19.5%
2	The U.S.	US$1.2682 B.	15.3%	9.4%
3	Thailand	US$494.807 M.	6.0%	7.7%
4	Turkey	US$393.223 M.	4.8%	42.9%
5	Indonesia	US$284.520 M.	3.4%	15.9%
6	Vietnam	US$244.145 M.	3.0%	-5.3%
7	Germany	US$241.489 M.	2.9%	2.5%
8	Singapore	US$229.903 M.	2.8%	84.6%
9	Korea	US$209.163 M.	2.5%	2.6%
10	India	US$186.222 M.	2.3%	-25.4%
11	Malyasia	US$185.150 M.	2.2%	-3.2%
Others		US$2.0547 Bn.	24.8%	----
Total		US$8.2739 Bn.	100.0%	-1.5%

Source: Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry