Chinese trade association officials report that their country's estimated shipments of machine tools in 2006 grew to 7-billion dollars, a gain of 37 percent. Increases posted by other Asian countries, though not as dramatic, arc still impressive: South Korea boosted output 18 percent, Taiwan 10 percent, and Japan 8 percent, in their respective currencies. Overall, the growth rate for Asian builders last year was 12.4 percent, outpacing the 10.3 percent gain made by the global industry as a whole. Perhaps more remarkable is that those countries were coming off an already-strong surge: From 2004 to 2005, they collectively grew their machine-tool industries by 26.9 percent; and in the year before that they gained by 31.3 percent!
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