New Delhi, August 21, 2015: Trade between India and Taiwan is increasing rapidly with Taiwan's machine tools exports to India growing by 11.6 % in the first two quarters of 2015 (January to June). This comes in the wake of the overall Taiwan-India bilateral trade touching US$ 2.108 billion in the first five months of 2015. Taiwanese exports to India contributed US$ 1.28 billion while imports from India touched US$ 828 million.

"There is a clear cut synergy between the needs of the Indian manufacturing sector and the special characteristics of the Taiwanese machine tool industry. As the world's fourth largest exporter of machine tools and components, machine tools in Taiwan can offer products to a broad range of industries, including aerospace, automobiles, computers, energy, medical equipment as well as precision moulds. The strengths of Taiwanese machine tools products include excellent quality, reasonable prices, integration and constant innovation, and continuous value addition. In the future, we truly expect Taiwanese products to help speed up India's manufacturing energy and make a significant contribution to the Make in India initiative," said Dr Guann-Jyh Lee, Director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in India, Economic Division.

He was speaking at a press conference at Pragati Maidan on August 20, 2015 against the backdrop of the Delhi Machine Tools Expo 2015 (DMTX). The event christened "Taiwan machine tools speed up a better India" - was organised by the bureau of Foreign Trade and implemented by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).

Taiwan now has become increasingly keen on investing in India. At present there are more than 80 Taiwanese companies in India. Many Taiwanese companies have successfully expanded their business in the fields of electronics, machinery, food and textiles.

"Establishing good economic and trade relationships with India has always been the goal of Taiwan. We are optimistic that India's future economic growth will be stronger given its 1.2 billion population and the demand driven by its young and aspirational middle class. The huge, upcoming public-private sector infrastructure projects are expected to drive growth further. No doubt, the Indian market holds enormous potential for Taiwanese companies," Dr Lee added.

At the Expo five Taiwanese companies - Tongtai Machine & Tool Co Ltd; She Hong Industrial Co Ltd; Chien Wei Precise Technology Co Ltd; MEGA Machine Co Ltd; and Fair Friend Enterprise Co Ltd, launched their products targeted specifically at the Indian manufacturing sector.

Indian industry can benefit from the Taiwanese machine tool industry as it is extremely innovation focused. This industry is concentrated in clusters along the Dadu Plateau of central Taiwan, which has been christened the Golden Valley. This region which is home to over 1000 precision machinery manufacturers and over 10,000 downstream suppliers employs more than 3,00,000 people and accounts for US$ 3 billion in revenues. It has the highest output value per unit area and the highest density of any machine tool industry cluster in the world.

Without this cluster, Google's solar farms in the desert would be unable to follow the sun. The top four equipment suppliers for the global semiconductor and display panel industries also use components from here and without them, the semiconductor and display panel industries would find their supply chains cut. Car components for the German and Italian manufacturers, as well as gears for General Motors, Porsche and Hyundai, all come from this industry cluster. Even China, the world's largest car market, principally depends on this Golden Valley of precision machine tools for its mould processing equipment. The Taiwan machine tool industry is even able to meet the stringent requirements of Apple and help it create its unique and innovative products. Taiwan machine tool industry has emerged as the preferred supplier to Apple in the face of stiff competition from traditional technology powers like Germany and Japan.

Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) is globally recognised as Taiwan's foremost non-profit trade promotion organisation, with over 60 overseas offices around the world.