Machinery equipment to be Taiwan's "next trillion dollar industry": President

April 6, 2007

Taiwan is making machinery equipment a focus industry for Taiwan, with the aim of becoming a "trillion dollar industry" and one of the world's three largest tool industries and export countries, said President Chen Shui-bian at a machinery industry gathering in Taipei.

President Chen made the remarks in the opening speech of the Taipei International Machine Show (TIMS), which opened on March 12 and is the third largest event of its kind in Asia.

The machinery industry will be worth an nearly NTD1.1 trillion in 2009, according to government projections. In his speech, President Chen said that based on past development experience, it is necessary for Taiwan to establish its next "Trillion Dollar Industry". Machinery industry development will focus on precision tools in particular.

Taiwan is currently the world's fourth largest tool exporter, behind Japan, Germany, and Italy. Taiwan's tool industry exports in 2006 totaled NTD 9.63 billion, growing 11.5% over the previous year, showing that Taiwan's industry holds a competitive advantage in the market, said Chen.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs Industrial Development Bureau (IDB), the industry value of Taiwan's machine and machine components production will break the NTD 400 billion mark by 2010 -- a fact that underscores its importance as an industry.

President Chen also noted that under the "Two Trillion Twin Stars" plan, the government aims for the semiconductor and flat panel display industries to break the NTD 1 trillion mark in output this year. The government has also several targets for 2009 of NTD 2 trillion for the semiconductor industry and NTD 1.6 trillion for the flat panel display industry.

President Chen also acknowledged requests for the government to build a large scale exhibition center, saying that the government would put its full efforts into developing an industry for exhibitions, conferences, and peripheral services.

This year marked the third TIMS, which was attended by 22 countries and 713 companies displaying a total of 2,778 exhibitions. There were a record number of both participating companies and exhibition spaces, which has propelled the TIMS to the ranks of one of Asia's top machinery tool industries.

The Taiwan External Trade Association also held a meeting on the tool markets in the newly emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, as well as Southeast Asia.

(Economic Daily News)

E-mail this page.