The global decline in demand for industrial production machinery this year has hit Taiwanese exports squarely, a report by the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, Taipeh; www.tami.org) reveals. In the first eight months of 2009, exports of all types of machinery declined by nearly 38.6% year-on-year to a value of USD 7.1 bn (EUR 4.7 bn). The setback for plastics machinery, of 39.7% to a value of USD 456m, was slightly more pronounced.

Association figures for full-year 2008 show that Taiwanese manufacturers turned out plastics machinery valued at USD 1.3 bn, of which around units worth USD 1.1 bn were exported. The island republic imported plastics machinery worth some USD 320m in the same period, so the domestic market had a total value of around USD 560m.

Nearly a third of Taiwan’s plastics machinery exports went to China, with an additional third going to neighbouring Asian countries Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Japan and Malaysia. The country’s largest non-Asian customer was Turkey, which ordered Taiwanese plastics machinery worth USD 26.4m, followed by Brazil, the US and Iran. European countries were “also-rans”, with Germany, the world’s largest producer and exporter of plastics machinery, importing Taiwanese hardware worth USD 16m and ranking 12th.

On the import side, Japan was Taiwan’s largest supplier of plastics machinery – worth USD 107m – followed by China, which supplied machines worth USD 61m. Germany was in third place, supplying volumes worth USD 52m, while South Korea (USD 22m) and Austria (USD 21m) were Taiwan’s fourth and fifth largest suppliers.