TaipeiPlas - Taiwan's plastic industry carves niche in the global market

Taiwan has been ranked as the world's 5th biggest producer and 4th biggest exporter of plastics and rubber processing machinery. With quality design and highly competitive price, Taiwan-based machinery manufacturers have taken great strides in developing products for the global market. Since the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) came into effect on 1 January 2011, Taiwan's primary and secondary industries have been benefiting from the tariff reductions and exemption, thereby boosting the price competiveness of Taiwan machinery in the Mainland China.

Taiwan's overall machinery industry is expected to recover with production value growing from 6% to 9% this year. This projection results from a study carried out by Yeh Lih-lun, an industry analyst with the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), a unit of the government backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). The study was commissioned by the Economics Ministry's Department of Industrial Technology under the Industrial Technology Intelligence Services (ITIS) program.

Industrial machinery is one of the largest sectors in Taiwan's machinery industry in terms of production value. The sector includes woodworking machinery, plastics processing machinery, textile machinery, food processing machinery, printing machinery, chemical machinery, packaging machinery, amongst others. Other major machinery sectors include pumps, compressors and fans; conveyors and automation equipment; and mechanical transmission devices.