All eyes on South East Asia

SOUTH East Asia is positioned to be the hotspot for global manufacturing, with Thailand leading as the most favourable market as they have the ecosystem, followed by Malaysia which is a key focal point for investment and trade.

Against that background, Taiwantrade together with Taiwan’s B2B portals have organized a forum on “All eyes on Southeast Asia” at Room 503 in Nangang Exhibition Hall. Experts from the Industrial Economics and Knowledge (IEK) have shared their insights on the machine tool market in Southeast Asia and discussed potential business opportunities.

Ms Guan Siqi, an analyst from Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center was amongst the speakers. She spoke about the opportunities and challenges in Thailand's machine tools market.

Despite Thailand's current political and economic uncertainty, it remains to be an attractive business area for investors. The country has the opportunities to forge partnerships and seek long-term expansion. Many still choose to ride out the slump as they still see long-term growth potential in South East Asia's second largest economy.

Siqi provided ideas on how to improve market share in Thailand, especially on how to take advantage of the green car industry. Dubbed as the Detroit of Asia, Thailand pushes to be an eco-car production powerhouse. Since the Eco Car and the fuel efficiency are the trends of the world, the Thai government’s Eco-car policy encourages more production in the country that meet the government's standards for the project. Thus, an increase demand for cylinder parts, turning lathes and other machine tool products are seen in the present and near future.

Another important lecture is about the Malaysian market. Mr Ye Lilun an analyst from Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center has noted Malaysia’s biggest machine tools import growth in recent years. In 2004, the country imported US$6.1 billion worth of machine tools; and US$8.6 billion in 2013, which is a 3.8% growth from the previous year.

According to Ye, Taiwan must take advantage of the market in Malaysia. He suggests to set up service centers in different locations in Malaysia in order for agents to improve their service and product differentiation leads, therefore expanding brand image.

Moreover, speakers Yang Yuyi, Vice President of S&J Corp., Ms Chen Yunzhi of Taiwantrade and Ms Lin Yilin of CENS talked about E-commerce and how industries such as machine tools can utilize the internet to get a bigger exposure in the international market, and  how to enter the Southeast Asian market.