Taiwan ranks world's 6th-largest producer of machine tools

Taipei, Jan. 15, 2004 (CENS)--Taiwan saw overall production value of machine tools amount to US$2 billion in 2003, up 15% from 2002 and advancing one notch as the world's sixth-largest producer by squeezing out Switzerland.

Taiwan ranked the world's fourth largest exporter of machine tools last year, only behind Germany, Japan, and Italy. More than half of Taiwan-made machine tools went to mainland China last year.

For the past decades, Taiwan's machine-tool industry has heavily relied on exports. Of the various categories of domestically made machine tools, machining center enjoyed the highest annual export growth than others.

Chiou Kuei-lin, president of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI), said the overall production value of Taiwan-made machine tools amounted to US$1.8 billion in 2002, about 5% less than that of Switzerland. But while Taiwan saw a 15% annual growth in machine-tool output last year, Switzerland recorded only flat performance. That's why Taiwan could surpass Switzerland as the world's sixth-largest producer of the products last year.

According to TAMI's survey, the world's top-five producers of machine tools remained unchanged last year as a year earlier. They are, in descending order, Germany, Japan, Italy, mainland China and the United States.

Thanks to their fast economic growth, Asia's major machine-tool producing nations scored bigger production growth than European counterparts last year. The Asian nations posting high growth in output of machine tools last year included mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Despite its one-notch advancement in the world machine-tool industry last year, Taiwan will have small chance to post higher ranking in the foreseeable future because the top-five nations' machine tool output is far more than Taiwan's.

For instance, mainland China, ranking the world's No.5, saw production value of machine tools double that of Taiwan last year. Over the past few years, mainland has enjoyed high growth in machine tool production.