Manufacturing as the most vital sector across the global contributes over US$10 trillion to global economy every year. Despite the global manufacturing production has had low growth for the last few years (2.3% in 2014), the annual growth of manufacturing value added has still remained around 1% for three consecutive years, and the currently global manufacturing sector are mainly driven by developing and emerging economies, particularly Asia is dominating the global manufacturing market, according the Manufacturing Index 2014 from investment consulting company Cushman & Wakefield.
The index analyses countries worldwide by assessing coasts, risks and operating conditions and relevant factors including logistics; the likelihood of natural disaster; economic risk; and energy and labour costs for manufacturing. The result indicates that Malaysia is the world’s top manufacturing market, and Taiwan places second with South Korea in third and Thailand in fourth.
The largest manufacturing country in the world, China, is well positioned in fifth overall, performing strongly in terms of costs, but the nation falls short of the top spot due to its weak score in the risk category.
Malaysia has become a new investors’ favourite, thanks to its central location in Southeast Asia, high annual GDP growth rate of 4.68% from 2000 to 2014, its pro-business policies, comparatively stable economic and political environment, sophisticated financial facilities, and well-developed infrastructure. Today, Malaysia’s manufacturing industry constitutes over 25% of GDP, with leading manufacturing sector by some margin is electrical and electronic products, which constitute 32.9% of Malaysia’s exports, and as such is a significant driver of the economy.
Singapore, as the world’s best country for doing business, is also becoming one of the leading markets for manufacturing sector. Singapore’s manufacturing output contributes over 21% of its total GDP, with major industries such as include chemicals, electronics, precision engineering, transport engineering, biomedical manufacturing, and general manufacturing.
As Asia continues to be at the leading position of the global manufacturing sector, Manufacturing Solutions Expo (MSE) 2015 will presents one-stop exhibition platform for products and solutions providers in both Asia and the World to showcase innovative solutions, cost effective technologies and products to improve productivity and efficiency within and beyond manufacturing industries.