Page 27 - Taiwan Machinery 2023-08 Edition

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INDUSTRY NEWS

market. Additionally, on January 4th of this year, the Bureau to Taiwan” policy has undermined machinery imports
of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) from Taiwan. And such political problems, in turn, force
expanded trade sanctions against Russia and Belarus, by Taiwanese suppliers to count more on the domestic market
including machine tools in the control list of strategic high- than ever. In the past, domestic machinery sales accounted
tech commodities (SHTC). This decision can add to the for around 5% of the industry’s total, but the share has now
Taiwanese machinery industry’s woes, given that Taiwan’s surpassed 20%.
machine tool exports to Russia posted continued growth in
2022. According to statistics by TAMI, the export value during
January and April 2023 amounts to US$9,414 million,
Despite the prevailing challenges, Taiwanese suppliers indicating a 20.1% year-on-year decline. Nevertheless,
who still look at China and the US may be disappointed export value for April alone showed a 3.2% increase,
to some extent, especially when the two countries for the equivalent to US$79 million more than a year ago. The
decade have served as growth engines for the industry. good news to insiders is that the industry’s monthly export
Taiwanese suppliers exported 30.9% of their machinery value remains on an upward trend for the time being.
to China in 2021 and then saw the figure drop to 25.9%
in 2022 when the world’s once most populous country Among all the product categories, “inspecting and
was still fretted by the Covid-19 pandemic. From January testing equipment” and “electric machinery” are the top
through April 2023, Taiwan’s machinery export value to sellers between January and April. The former accounts
the country declined 23.0% compared to the same period for 15.5% of total exports and is worth US$1,461 million,
last year. On the other hand, the US contributed 22.2% to while the latter contributes 15.2% or US$1,434 million to
Taiwan’s overall machinery export value in 2021, and then the total. Given that such machines are mainly used in
25.6% in 2022. However, the growth rate started to slow semiconductor production, the figures mentioned above
down from January to April 2023 to only 24.7%. suggest that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has been
kept in good shape to benefit its suppliers. Last but not
The data shown above indicate that Taiwanese least, the machine tools are Taiwan’s third best-seller
suppliers are prone to geopolitical risks. A further proof is during the same period of time, which generated more than
that the Chinese government’s implementation of stringent US$824 million in export.
zero COVID policy and the “Repatriate offshore funds

Taiwan Machinery (September 2023)