Page 26 - Taiwan Machinery 2025-08 Edition

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INDUSTRY NEWS

over the past decades in developing high value-added, early April this year, the Trump Administration has dealt
intelligent, and tailor-made models to boost their global a heavy blow to global economy and multilateral trade
competitiveness. systems with its offensive reciprocal tariffs. U.S. Present
Donald Trump has paused the tariff levies for 90 days and
Nevertheless, the constant depreciation of Japanese retained a 10% tariff, but Taiwan’s machinery sector still
yen has hamstrung the competitiveness of high- feels threatening as it heavily depends on overseas market.
performance machine tools from Taiwanese manufacturers.
From 2021 through June this year, Japanese yen has Recently, Taiwan dollar has revalued steeply, with its
devalued as much as 40.8%, far steeper than Taiwan value having soared 11.5% from April 1 through June 25. In
dollar’s 3.4% and South Korean won’s 25.1%, almost the meantime, South Korean won had rose 7.5%, Japanese
erasing the 20-30% price gap previously favorable to yen 3.0%, and the Chinese yuan 1.3%. For Taiwanese
Taiwan-made machines against Japan-made machines. exporters who have insisted retaining their roots in Taiwan,
the tariff hikes have badly hurt their profits from U.S.-Taiwan
In the mid-to-low market, Taiwan-built machines now currency exchange.
can hardly compete with their counterparts from mainland
China on the global market given that the mainland To maintain Taiwan’s export competitiveness, Taiwan
Chinese manufacturers are using their overcapacity and dollar should depreciate and appreciate in sync with other
the government subsidization as the advantages for their competing currencies and the fluctuation paces should stay
undercutting strategy, not to mention the reality that they close to those of the competing currencies as well.
have made considerable improvement in quality and
processing precision of their machines. In the face of the pressures from the reciprocal tariffs
and the appreciating Taiwan dollar against greenback,
As for the outlook of 2025, Taiwan’s machine-tool Taiwanese machinery manufacturers need to re-draw
industry is estimated to see considerable business from the their market strategy as well as exploit niche markets
expected post-war reconstruction projects once the Russia- and new opportunities, backed up by their differentiation,
Ukraine war and the wars in the Middle East end this year customization, and grouping operations.
as projected.

The Trump Administration’s reciprocal tariffs on almost
every country across the world have made global economy
more uncertain and global market more cautious. Since

Taiwan Machinery (September 2025)