During the recent EMO Exhibition, CELIMO held its International Meeting. While the primary purpose of this is to provide a networking opportunity for European importers and distributors, this is hung on the hook of economic updates; this year, these covered Europe, Japan, Taiwan and the USA. These presentations are available for MTA Cluster members to download.
For Europe, the picture is one of growth slowing in 2025 following a reasonable but not spectacular year in 2024; the overall outlook for 2026 is then for a modest pick-up in activity as economic conditions settle down and stimuli such as increased defence spending and lower interest rates kick-in.
The picture for Japan was also characterized by slow economic growth and although metal cutting machine tool orders are at a reasonable level, there has been a shift away from the home market towards exports which accounted for 70% of the total in 2024.
The Taiwanese presentation focused mainly on export and import data both by country and product type but also gave some insights on their role in the global manufacturing supply chain.
Finally, our colleagues in the US began by reflecting on the implications of their President’s tariff policies coupled with a range of business tax incentives and reductions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that should provide some relief form the damage of the rising cost of inputs and imports more generally. It was noted that their forecasts for the US market have been revised down during 2025 in the face of the various announcements but that there are still some industrial hot spots in industries such as medical, electrical & electronic engineering and aerospace (both civil and defence).
If you would like to download the presentations (which include some notes where relevant), you can find this at https://celimo.com/noticia/celimo-presentation-emo-2025/.