Taiwan plastics industry in full force at TaipeiPlas 2012

Taiwan's plastics and rubber machine industry has been developing in the last four decades that the island's R&D development has been fast as its counterpart in Europe, North America and Japan in terms of quality and efficiency. 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. Taiwan's rubber and plastics machinery exports has risen to $1.33 billion in 2011, up by 14% from the previous year's record. It is a major supplier of injection moulding machines with approximately 70% of production exported to Mainland China, Southeast Asia, India, South Asia, the Middle East, and African countries. With demand for environment-friendly production systems on the rise, Taiwanese manufacturers have embarked on developing energy-saving and eco-friendly models to suit the preferences of international buyers.

Environment-friendly injection moulding machines
Taiwan's plastic injection moulding machine sector has been turning out energysaving, short-cycle moulding, high-speed precision moulding, automated, customised systems to meet varying processing requirements. They initiated industrial upgrade and move towards producing plastic injection moulding machines that are faster, more precise and efficient, safer and with advanced network applicability to meet future production needs. Major companies in this sector have all launched innovative products, including fastcycle PET preform production systems, mould labelling production systems, high-speed system injection moulding machines, twoplaten injection moulding machines, vertical electric injection moulding machines, and high-speed servo-hydraulic injection moulding machines, amongst others. Plastic injection products can be applied in a comprehensive range of areas including consumer electronics, medical devices and packaging, automotive, information technology, optical components, and other industries.

The machinery industry is benefiting from the establishment of machinery parks. This followed the success of industrial clustering in the Taichung Industrial Zone and other science parks in Hsinchu, central Taiwan and southern Taiwan. As a result, Taichung Precision Machinery Park, Taichung Fongjhou Industrial Technology Park, Chiayi Dapumei Machinery Technology Park, and Changhwa Erlin Precision Machinery Park were created.

The machinery industry's future
directions have been outlined in the various programmes where the industry is being eyed as the next trillion-dollar industry after the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries. Amongst the subsectors being lined-up for promotion are mould, spare parts and components. The policies formulated in accordance with the these targets include the Trillion-dollar Machine Industry Plan, Plan for Multiplication of Machine and Spare Parts Production Values, and Plan for Localization of Screen Equipment. These three major plans have integrated technologies, manpower and resources from the industrial, government, academic and research sectors – all geared to turn Taiwan into one of the top three major machine parts suppliers in the world.