2013 Five Region Fastener Association Conference was successfully held on 19 June in Shanghai, China as the concurrent activity of 2013 Fastener Expo Shanghai. Mr. Thompson T.H.Chang, vice president of Taiwan Industrial Fastener Institute, introduced the general situation of Taiwan’s fastener industry in 2012.

Being affected by the European debt crisis, both the export volume and export value of Taiwan’s fasteners dropped in 2012. The export volume dropped by 2.99% to 1.379 million tons and the export value fell by 4.42% to USD $ 3.79 billion year-on-year. Even the unit price saw a decrease of 1.47% to 2.753 USD/kg. However, in the first quarter of 2013, the export volume returned to 340,000 tons; the export value went down 4.33% and the unit price went down 6.43% to 2.623 USD/kg for the fall of materials.

USA imported 560,000 tons fasteners (taking up 40.66% of the totals) from Taiwan in 2012 and ranked as the largest importer, followed by Germany, Netherlands, Japan, and United Kingdom, taking up 8.96% (123,000 tons), 5.22% (72,000 tons), 4.78% (65,000) and 4.04% (55,000 tons) respectively, of which, the unit price exported to Japan topped the highest level and reached 3.3 USD/kg; and the unit price to other four countries was among 2.5 to 2.7 USD/kg.

Taiwan seldom imported fasteners, whose import volume was just 20,000 to 30,000 tons in one year. The import volume was 29,000 tons in 2012, seeing an increase of 20.69% from 2011.

The unit price among import fasteners and export fasteners saw a large differential. Usually, the import fasteners are high-value added, using in automobile and construction industries, the average import price could reach 6 USD/kg or above. However, the export fasteners are standard products. The average export price was just 2.753 USD/kg in 2012. 

Though the export volume of Taiwan’s fastener saw a decrease of 2.99% in 2012, it could be ascribe to the less import by EU. Currently the European debt crisis could not be solved in short term and EU is the major export destination of Taiwan, it is estimated that the export to EU won’t grow in future. In America, the job market keeps slow recovery, the PMI of manufacturing industry goes up, automobile and machinery industries turns to be promising, and economy recovery tends to be robust. It could be expected that the export to America could keep a sustainable grow.    

Statistics of Taiwan’s Fastener Export (2005 – 2012)

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