Page 41 - Taiwan Hand Tools - 2021-03 Edition

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INDUSTRY TRENDS

up November’s overall outbound YoY growth at 12.03% Despite the global situation going into 2021, in mid-
and marking a fifth consecutive month of growth. Overall, 2020, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen visited the island’s
TIER’s report indicated that export figures between January hand tools hub, Taichung City, to tour local firms and show
to November of 2020 saw a YoY increase of 4.20% support for impacted traditional industries the COVID-19
compared to 2019. pandemic outbreak. She highlighted Taiwan’s traditional
industries’ circumstances, mired between the U.S.-China
With the machinery equipment industry experiencing a trade war and COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptive impact,
lower base period and semiconductor production continuing cumulating into the urgent need for a digital transformation
a stable growth, the hand tools, metals, machinery, and of internal operations. Despite the unfavorable global
other machinery and parts-producing sectors are also situation, Tsai expressed faith and optimism in Taiwan’s
significantly upping production volume to meet client hand tools firms’ ability to turn crises into opportunities.
demand. The struggling machinery equipment industry
could return to double-digit YoY growth at 13.77%, marking
the most significant increase since June 2018.

Though, the biggest challenges that export-oriented
industries like hand tools and hardware face are external.
Metal and Mechanical Industries Division Chief Chang
Shang-chun said businesses are especially concerned
about two issues: the first being Taiwan’s exclusion from
regional trade pacts, such as RCEP and CPTPP where
Taiwan’s main competitors Japan and China would enjoy
tariff-free trade, and more importantly, Taiwan’s Dollar
exchange loss.

Taiwan Hand Tools 2021 Issue