July 2011 U.S. Metal Processing Machine Tool Import Accelerates Decline in Exports

The American Manufacturing Technology Association (AMT) released the latest statistics on the July 2011 US metalworking machine tool import and export trade. In July 2011, the U.S. metal processing machine tool exports were 223 million U.S. dollars, a decrease of 1.6% from the previous period and an increase of 17.07% year-on-year; the import volume was 393 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 5.6%, and a year-on-year increase of 71.12%.

From January to July 2011, the US exported 1.528 billion U.S. dollars worth of metal processing machine tools, an increase of 33.7% over the 1.143 billion U.S. dollars for the same period in 2010, and imported metal processing machines for 2.35 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 78.8% over the 1.314 billion U.S. dollars for the same period in 2010.

The export of gold-cutting machine tools kept growing, and the number of molding machine tools decreased month-on-month. In July 2011, the U.S. exported metal processing machines by 2.23 U.S. dollars, including exports of CNC machine tools by 90 million U.S. dollars, a decrease of 15.7% month-on-month. From January to July 2011, the United States exported CNC machine tools for 661 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 33.6% over the 495 million U.S. dollars for the same period in 2010. From January to July 2011, the export value of CNC machine tools in the United States accounted for 43.28% of the total exports.

Judging from the type of product, in July 2011, the United States exported 144 million US dollars of metal cutting machine tools, an increase of 3.2% compared with the previous month; the export of metal forming machines was US$79 million, a decrease of 9.2% from the previous month. From January to July 2011, the United States exported a total of US$1.01 billion in metal-cutting machine tools, an increase of 32.8% from the US$761 million in the same period in 2010; the total amount of exported metal forming machines was US$518 million, an increase of 35.5% from US$382 million in the same period of the previous year.

CNC machine tools account for 70% of the total imports of metal processing machine tools

In July 2011, US imports and exports of metal processing machine tools were 393 million U.S. dollars, of which imported CNC machines were 290 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 9.2% from the previous quarter. From January to July 2011, the United States imported 1.65 billion U.S. dollars worth of CNC machine tools, which was a significant increase of 101.3% from the 820 million U.S. dollars in the same period of 2010. From January to July 2011, the U.S. imports of CNC machine tools accounted for 70.2% of the total imports.

From the product type, in July 2011, the United States imported metal cutting machine tools for 337 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 11.83.9% compared with the previous period; and imported metal forming machine tools for the year were 56 million U.S. dollars, a decrease of 20.8% from the previous month. From January to July 2011, the United States accumulatively imported 1.905 billion U.S. dollars worth of metal-cutting machine tools, an increase of 89.8% from the 1.004 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of 2010; and cumulatively imported metal forming machine tools were 445 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 43.2 percent from 311 million U.S. dollars in the same period of 2010.