Industry Focus

2019-2022Taiwan FastenerExport to the U.S.

For many years, Taiwan’s fasteners
have been mainly exported to the Europeanand American markets. In addition toabout 30% of its production capacity being
utilized to serve European customers,
about 45% of its production capacity isalso utilized to serve the U.S. market.
The changes in supply and demand in theU.S. construction, machinery, automotive,
railway, 3C, aerospace, and other important
fastener application industries also often
affect the overall marketing and investment
development of Taiwan fastener industry,
demonstrating the close connection between
Taiwan and the U.S. fastener supply
chains. Despite the rise of many competing
countries in the market, Taiwan’s industry
is still unable to be replaced by competitorsfrom other countries in the short term due
to its long-standing and in-depth presencein the U.S. market and its leading edge inquality, price, service and innovation. This
article will analyze the future development
trend of Taiwan fastener industry based on
the statistics released by the U.S. ITA andthe export database of Taiwan’s Bureau of
Foreign Trade. (Note: The data releasedby the U.S. ITA and Taiwan's Bureau ofForeign Trade may be slightly different due
to time difference, but it will not affect theoverall analysis results).

302

Fastener World no.198/2023

Taiwan Fasteners are Still the Mainstream of U.S.
Procurement;
Sales to the U.S. in 2022 will Reach a New HighDuring the period from 2019 to November 2022, the overall export trend of Taiwan
fastener industry showed a decline followed by a rebound. This was mainly due to theoutbreak of the epidemic from 2019 to early 2020, which led to the border control andmanufacturing shutdown in various countries, resulting in a decrease in global demand
for fastener production. However, despite the decrease in import demand, it can beobserved that the amount of fasteners imported by the U.S. from countries around theworld still remained at a certain level, with the U.S. importing approximately US$5.514
billion of fasteners from the world in 2019 and decreasing to US$4.777 billion in2020, without the so-called “total disappearance of fastener demand” or “big dive inorders” curve. On the contrary, during the period of 2021-2022, because the controlof the epidemic in Europe and the U.S. gradually changed to the influenza mode,
borders gradually opened up, the operation of society gradually returned to normal,
as a result, the demand of the industries revived and the procurement of fasteners
increased rather than decreased.
At this stage, Taiwan is still the largest source of fasteners purchased by the U.S.,
and the import amount is obviously higher than those of other countries. And with theperformance of Taiwan’s fastener export to the U.S. in the first 11 months of 2022,
which was already higher than the whole year of 2021, it can be confirmed that
Taiwan’s fastener export to the U.S. will reach a new high in the full year of 2022.
In addition, benefiting from Taiwan’s relatively stable control of the epidemic, the U.S.
25% tariff on Chinese fasteners and other products, as well as the epidemic in China
becoming more severe again, U.S. buyers have adjusted their procurement strategy andswitched orders to Taiwan in order to avoid a broken supply chain in inventory, indirectly
weakening the rebound of Chinese fasteners sales to the U.S., and gradually widening thegap between Taiwan and China’s performance since 2020.

Industry Focus
In addition, South Korea, India and Turkey, which are classified as
imaginary competitors by some Taiwanese manufacturers for export
competition, reported only less than 1/10th of Taiwan’s fastener export
to the U.S., and cannot pose a threat to Taiwan’s fasteners in the shortterm. On the other hand, Japan, Canada, Germany and Italy, which mainly
focus on the production of higher-end fasteners, also ranked high in the listof major fastener import sources in the U.S.
The top 20 fastener import sources in the U.S. are Taiwan, China,South Korea, India, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Kingdom,France, Malaysia, and Brazil, which have been identified to perform better
than the previous year in 2022.

US Fastener Import in 2019-Oct. 2022 (Unit: million USD)
2019

2020

2021

World

5,514

4,777

6,046

Jan-Oct
2022
6,526

Taiwan

1,898

1,763

2,271

2,544

China

1,103

824

1,118

1,393

Japan

624

506

622

478

Canada310

259

322

317

Germany365328

366

309

South Korea

188

173

213

238

India

145

107

183

208

Italy

144

137

171

161

Mexico

130

110

129

142

Thailand

83

74

87

135

VietnamUnitedKingdom
France

62

70

83

97

87

82

85

87

87

70

69

75

Turkey

20

25

34

33

Switzerland

31

29

32

30

Malaysia

21

17

19

29

Sweden

27

18

26

23

Spain

27

28

29

21

Brazil

12

12

18

20

Liechtenstein

15

18

22

19

Country

Increased Sales Values;
Taiwan Bears Fruit in High Valueadded Fastener Development
According to the statistical data from Taiwan’s
Bureau of Foreign Trade, Taiwan exported a total of
about 1.5 million tons of fasteners to the world in
the first 11 months of 2022, almost the same as in
the same period of 2021, and has returned to theexport level of 2019 before the epidemic; its export tothe U.S. reached 667,400 tons, accounting for 44.63%
of Taiwan’s total fastener exports, a slight increase of
2.30% over the same period in 2021. It is worth notingthat although Taiwan’s fastener export volume in
the first 11 months of 2022 did not change muchcompared to the same period of the previous year,
but its export values to most of the top 20 exportpartners have long exceeded the annual data of 2021,
which can be roughly deduced that Taiwan’s fastenerunit prices in the current exports have been recently
on a rise.
In the first 11 months of 2022, Taiwan exported a
total of about US$5.7 billion of fasteners worldwide, asignificant increase of 17.24% compared to the same
period in 2021, of which the U.S. accounted for about
US$2.555 billion, and compared to the same period in2021, an increase of 23.17%, a better overall growthtrend.
I think it might be that in recent years Taiwanfastener industry has been doing a lot and proved to bequite successful in its way toward smart manufacturing,higher value-added products, and more customized
service, and has invested faster than its competitors in
China and Southeast Asian countries, thus indirectly
enhancing the competitiveness of Taiwan’s productson the global stage. On the other hand, the crisis of
disrupted supply chains encountered by many U.S.
buyers during the epidemic has made them realize theefficiency and advantages of Taiwan fastener industry
in terms of its quality and service, and they are willingto purchase Taiwan’s fasteners at higher prices to makeup for the inventory shortages.

Source: US ITA

It can also be observed from the statistics of Taiwan’s top 20 export partners that not only the United States, but also Germany, theNetherlands, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Italy, Australia, France, Poland, Spain, Slovakia, India, Denmark, and Vietnam have seen
significant growth in export value during the same period. Slovakia even nearly doubled the growth, which is worthy of attention.

Conclusion
Taiwan fastener industry has nearly 2,000 companies and up to 40,000 employees. It has the most dense and integrated fastener
manufacturing chain in the world, and has continued to play a reliable role in supporting the U.S. and global industries for many years.
The relevant data also show that the Taiwanese industry is still an indispensable source of fastener supply for the U.S. market and cannot
be replaced by other countries in the near future. The high level of interest from U.S. buyers in the International Fastener Expo (IFE) inLas Vegas this year was also observed. Before the emergence of stronger competitors in the market, Taiwanese suppliers should seize theopportunities to actively strengthen the development of more high-value added products and deployment in more advanced markets, so as
to avoid the dilemma that the product homogeneity is too high and can only compare prices with other competitors. On the other hand, theyshould also make good use of their current leading position in the U.S. market to deepen the cooperation links with local customers andshow the uniqueness of their own services, so as to maintain the adhesion of customers to Taiwan’s fastener supply chain and create more
possibilities for future cooperation.
Fastener World no.198/2023

303

Industry Focus
Top 20 Partners of Taiwan's Fastener Export (KG) in 2019-Nov. 2022

GlobalUnited States
Germany
Netherlands
Japan
CanadaUnited Kingdom
Italy
MexicoSwedenPolandSpain
China
FranceAustralia
ThailandSlovakia
India
Belgium
Saudi Arabia
RussianFederation

2019

2020

2021

2022/Jan.2022/Nov.

1,479,292,223
621,962,469
132,505,809
80,348,283
72,771,839
51,295,923
55,620,928
32,429,910
31,167,935
28,912,202
31,645,985
27,015,928
20,276,785
27,639,807
19,377,435
21,720,407
8,797,787
12,978,587
17,378,900
9,197,623

1,363,249,857
609,131,909
116,623,332
67,241,601
63,283,611
45,368,429
41,692,178
27,368,054
23,813,674
24,839,100
27,418,561
23,066,684
24,079,544
23,178,904
19,766,919
20,775,441
7,888,422
12,195,250
13,300,763
11,519,394

1,610,697,606
699,424,627
140,334,458
92,325,806
66,328,760
57,377,615
60,596,995
35,787,498
34,183,071
32,330,710
33,003,477
31,967,659
33,366,679
26,338,768
23,380,789
23,890,165
9,393,855
14,062,615
15,354,809
9,984,359

1,495,400,767
667,436,000
135,660,007
86,725,588
63,100,822
49,678,532
47,057,013
39,213,133
30,556,156
30,222,724
29,137,178
28,769,712
24,903,911
24,489,405
24,147,784
18,781,797
15,487,166
11,612,630
10,764,603
9,782,759

17,425,037

15,488,403

15,934,986

9,779,391

Share (%)
in Jan.-Nov.
2022
100
44.633
9.072
5.799
4.220
3.322
3.147
2.622
2.043
2.021
1.948
1.924
1.665
1.638
1.615
1.256
1.036
0.777
0.720
0.654

2021/2022
Same Period
Change (%)
0.513
2.303
6.624
2.686
3.909
-5.329-16.01416.680-0.8271.970-5.643-2.918-17.395
0.894
17.543-14.783
75.392-11.922-25.297
3.130

0.654

-33.465

Source: Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign TradeTop 20 Partners of Taiwan's Fastener Export (USD) in 2019-Nov. 2022
2019
GlobalUnited States
Germany
Netherlands
JapanUnited Kingdom
CanadaChina
MexicoSwedenItaly
Australia
FrancePoland
Spain
ThailandSlovakia
Belgium
India
Denmark
Vietnam2020

2022/Jan.2022/Nov.

2021

4,316,380,032 3,969,114,428 5,319,398,407
1,751,810,124
1,689,817,152
2,249,932,503
392,118,297
340,097,242
454,931,212
227,785,981
195,142,285
291,941,389
241,272,905
209,497,416
246,070,626
171,259,001
136,837,417
208,903,511
145,037,763
128,760,834
176,999,474
114,145,687
128,962,962
191,236,329
97,384,603
77,878,026
119,553,758
94,555,904
85,303,928
121,742,008
82,026,949
70,888,895
103,873,841
69,235,465
69,806,992
92,257,677
80,661,599
68,227,341
82,677,008
67,825,360
58,766,598
81,787,622
64,535,795
55,463,942
83,072,214
69,487,371
64,688,319
83,681,163
19,760,325
18,229,004
23,660,937
51,612,649
40,061,696
52,867,737
35,688,409
33,228,708
42,979,529
30,142,035
29,015,355
35,326,825
32,742,405
34,387,510
38,888,113

5,699,141,036
2,554,755,329
474,873,293
308,164,492
265,296,791
192,802,423
179,819,114
159,802,800
126,710,925
124,603,961
120,667,600
109,002,382
88,887,602
84,462,887
84,101,510
75,475,451
43,291,635
41,950,958
41,389,841
38,582,095
38,294,038

Share (%)
in Jan.-Nov.
2022
100
44.827
8.332
5.407
4.655
3.383
3.155
2.804
2.223
2.186
2.117
1.913
1.560
1.482
1.476
1.324
0.760
0.736
0.726
0.677
0.672

2021/2022
Same Period
Change (%)
17.24223.172
16.09816.806
18.6360.891
11.497-7.62618.92113.15224.40436.30717.14811.4069.891-1.05596.197-14.513
3.889
21.186
9.345

Source: Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Tradeby Gang Hao Chang, Vice Editor-in-Chief of Fastener World304

Fastener World no.198/2023