Malaysia's machine tool exports on a high

The Malaysian market is one of the most important in Southeast Asia for German machine tool manufacturers. The country is currently ranked 32nd in terms of sales markets worldwide. As a manufacturing country, Malaysia itself currently still has a minor, but dynamically growing importance on the world market. While exports of Malaysian machine tools have steadily increased over the past ten years, the value of imports has stagnated. However, the country remains a net importer of machine tools.

For the German machine tool industry, Malaysia is regularly among the top 40 most important foreign markets, even though the German export volume to Malaysia has recently been declining. While machine tools (including parts, accessories and services) worth more than 40 million euros per year were sold to Malaysia at times, the value dropped to less than 30 million euros at times. Recently, a strong fluctuation in export figures could be observed. Whereas the export value had increased by almost half in 2018, it slumped sharply the following year to just under 20 million euros. In the Corona crisis year of 2020, however, exports to Malaysia managed to increase by more than half, contrary to the general trend. In 2021, a minus of 9 percent was recorded. With an export volume of 27.3 million euros, Malaysia thus ranked 32nd among the most important sales markets at last count. According to current data from VDW association statistics, incoming orders from Malaysia have more than doubled in the current year. A strong increase in German machine tool exports to Malaysia is therefore expected for the full year 2022. The export figures for the first half of the year already point in this direction (plus 114 percent compared to the same period last year).

Export volumes fluctuating

The export volume of Malaysian machine tools to foreign countries amounted to approximately 347 million euros in 2021. This means that domestic exports have recovered significantly from the interim low in 2019 and 2020 (237 million and 246 million euros, respectively) and are more than 40 percent higher than the 2020 level. Taking a longer-term view, Malaysian exports show a significant increase. While the export value in 2010 was only 200 million euros, it was around 75 percent more in the record year 2021. Malaysia's main export countries are China (25 percent), Singapore (20 percent) and Taiwan Region (11 percent).

Net importer of machine tools

In 2021, Malaysia imported machine tools (including parts and services) worth 587 million euros (down 17 percent from the previous year).

Imports into the country have fluctuated around the 600 million euro mark over the past ten years. The interim high was reached back in 2012 with an import volume of over 830 million euros. In 2021, the majority of machine tool imports came from China (176 million euros, about 30 percent). This was followed by Japan (132 million euros, 23 percent) and Taiwan region (75 million euros, 13 percent). Germany ranked fifth with a share of 6 percent.

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