Exhibitor registration for the Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS 2021) was opened on 9 June.

Hosted by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI), the biennial TIMTOS show will take place in Taipei from 15 to 20 March next year at TWTC Hall 1 as well as Hall 1 and Hall 2 of Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.

It is expected that there will be 1,230 exhibitors filling 7,000 booths at the show, now firmly ranking as Asia’s second and the world’s third largest machine tool exhibition.

While the coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the global economy, Taiwan successfully blocked the first wave of infection at the beginning of the year and has also succeeded in dealing with a second wave, and is being held up as an anti-pandemic model for other countries to learn from.

A notable success was the "national face mask production team" which was formed by the machinery industry in Taiwan at the outbreak of the pandemic. The companies involved integrated resources and Taiwan now makes 20 million face masks per day for world-wide distribution in the fight against COVID-19.

Taiwan’s machine tool industry has a complete supply chain system, making it the world's fifth largest exporting country for machine tools, with customers in many sectors including automotive, electronics and aerospace.

According to a study by India-based MarketsandMarkets Research Private Ltd, the pandemic has caused a decline in automotive production world-wide with supply chains being severely impacted. However, the global machine tool market is still expected to grow from US$65.6 billion in 2020 to US$68.9 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 5%.

Asia Pacific is forecast to be the fastest-growing market, a trend that Taiwan's machine tool industry has been aware of in recent years. As a result, Taiwan has concentrated its main export momentum in the region.

The market survey by MarketsandMarkets also pointed out that the Industrial Internet of Things will continue to grow rapidly and the machine tool market will have to adapt further to meet the demand for intelligent machines and remote monitoring.

To this end, in addition to displaying various types of precision machine tools, metal cutting machines, metal forming machines and components in 2021, TIMTOS will also showcase complete line and turnkey products for Industry 4.0 solutions, including sensors, robots, cloud data analysis and remote monitoring.

Meanwhile, with the impact of the pandemic currently affecting world-wide markets, TAITRA is actively assisting Taiwan's machine tool companies to explore new business opportunities with a series of on-line promotional events, including international webinars and 2-D on-line exhibitions.

TIMTOS 2021 will remain open for exhibitor registration until 31 AugusT this year. For more information or to register, please visit the Web site (www.timtos.com.tw).