Taipei, March 6 (CNA) The Taipei International Machine Tool Show 2023 (TIMTOS), one of the leading machinery exhibitions in the region, opened Monday with more than 1,000 exhibitors from Taiwan and abroad on hand to showcase their products.
The show, organized by the government-sponsored Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI), is being held at the Nangang Exhibition Center and Taipei World Trade Center in Taipei through Saturday.
The more than 1,000 exhibitors have come from 18 countries and regions and are displaying their products to more than 4,000 potential buyers expected to attend the trade show, the organizers said.
An online version of the exhibition also opened Monday and will run until April 6, the organizers said.
According to the organizers, the trade show will feature several types of items, such as metal cutting machine tools, machine tool parts, laser punching machines, metal forming machinery, casting and forging equipment, tube and wire processing tools, and surface treatment equipment.
More sophisticated control systems and industrial robots, and inspection and measurement instruments and software will also be on display.
The United States, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark will also have their own national pavilions at the trade show.
At the exhibition's opening ceremony Monday, TAMI Chairman Larry Wei (魏燦文) said TIMTOS 2023 was expected to create more than US$2 billion in business opportunities.
After facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic uncertainty over the past three years, he said, the machinery sector has regained its footing to unveil advanced products that reduce carbon emissions and optimized services.
At present, Taiwan is the world's fifth largest machine tool exporter, Wei said, after its overseas sales rose 8.6 percent in 2022 from a year earlier to US$3.02 billion.
Echoing Wei, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the opening ceremony that the local machinery industry is the third in Taiwan to generate more than NT$1 trillion (US$32.73 billion) in output value, after the semiconductor and optoelectronics sectors, reflecting its competitiveness.
According to Tsai, the local machinery industry has created more than 350,000 job openings since 2017 as it transformed itself from a precision industry into a smart industry.
TAITRA Chairman James Huang (黃志芳) said it was particularly remarkable that Turkey sent a delegation of 20 potential buyers despite being hit with huge casualties and losses in a deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake in early February.
Huang said Turkey was the third largest buyer of Taiwan's machining centers in 2022, and he believed there was strong potential for the two sides to continue cooperating on machinery in the post COVID-19 era.
Also attending the opening ceremony, Sandra Oudkirk, director of the American Institute in Taiwan's Taipei office, praised the performance of Taiwan's machinery industry, saying Taiwan has played a critical role in global supply chains.
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