Taiwan’s machinery exports last month fell 10.9 percent year-on-year, dropping for a 13th straight month due to the continued weakness in the global macroeconomic environment, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry said yesterday.
Orders received by local machinery makers shrank in August last year when global demand slowed, but last month’s annual decline in exports was less than July’s 21.7 percent contraction, the association said.
This correlated with the improvement found in the nation’s overall outbound shipments, which fell 7.3 percent last month, compared with a 10.4 percent fall in July, it added.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“In the past month, the machinery industry presented the second-best export performance among local industries after the information and communication technology industry,” which saw outbound shipments rise 43.1 percent annually in the month, the association said.
The data for last month showed machinery exports — comprising inspections and testing of equipment, electronic equipment and machine tools — totaled at US$2.58 billion, down from US$2.9 billion a year earlier. Exports had decreased 2.5 percent from US$2.65 billion on a monthly basis, the data showed.
In the first eight months of this year, machinery exports slid 18.4 percent year-on-year to US$19.59 billion, following a 19.4 percent fall in the first seven months, the data showed.
The US was the largest buyer of Taiwanese machinery in the first eight months, spending US$4.71 billion on purchases in total, which accounted for 24 percent of the nation’s exports, the association found. Its data also showed that China ranked second, with purchases totaling US$4.57 billion for a 23.3 percent share of Taiwanese exports, and Japan was third place, with purchases totaling US$1.58 billion and accounting for 8 percent of the total.
While machinery exports to the US and China decreased by 24.7 percent and 27.8 percent respectively in the first eight months from a year earlier, the association said US demand appears relatively stable and exports to that market would gradually recover going forward.
However, the industry’s near-term outlook remains challenging, it said, citing a slower recovery in the global economy, the weak manufacturing production activities around the world, the persisting high-interest-rate environment globally, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the US-China tech rivalry.
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