Machinery exports last month rose 7.5 percent year-on-year, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI) said in a report yesterday, in line with the nation’s overall exports, which increased 16.8 percent.
Machinery exports totaled US$2.76 billion last month, up from US$2.58 billion a year earlier, data compiled by TAMI showed.
On a monthly basis, machinery exports grew 12.3 percent from US$2.46 billion, the data showed.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
TAMI attributed the growth in exports to the continued recovery of the global economy and growing business opportunities related to artificial intelligence applications and high-end chips.
In the first eight months of this year, machinery exports totaled US$19.39 billion, down 0.9 percent from US$19.59 billion in the same period last year, but the pace of decline significantly slowed from the 2.2 percent drop in the first seven months, association data showed.
Taiwan’s major machinery exports comprise mainly inspection and testing equipment, electronic equipment and machine tools, the association said.
In the January-to-August period, overseas shipments of electronics equipment increased 6.6 percent to US$3.27 billion and those of inspection and testing equipment rose 3.4 percent to US$3.17 billion.
However, outbound shipments of machine tool exports plunged 16.3 percent annually to US$1.46 billion due to geopolitical tensions and currency exchange effects, TAMI said.
As Asian currencies have continued to depreciate against the US dollar, the impact of foreign exchange rate fluctuations on Taiwanese firms in securing orders deserves further attention, it said.
As of early this month, the New Taiwan dollar had depreciated about 4.5 percent against the US dollar since the beginning of the year, while the won declined 6.66 percent, the yuan dropped 3.18 percent and the yen 9.58 percent, it said.
The US and China were the two largest buyers of Taiwanese machinery goods in the first eight months, at US$4.77 billion and US$4.54 billion respectively, followed by Japan, with purchases totaling US$1.41 billion, association data showed.
Purchases from the US, China and Japan accounted for 24.6 percent, 23.4 percent and 7.2 percent respectively of Taiwan’s total machinery exports in the first eight months, the data showed.
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