Growth for South Korean machines

In spite of the turmoil shaking the Korean peninsula, the South Korean plastics and rubber converting machinery industry is progressively gaining importance. This is evidenced, among other things, by exports, which approached a value of 1.65 billion euros in 2012, growing from just over 1.4 billion in 2011 and 1.2 billion in 2010. South Korea ranks as the sixth largest world exporter, ahead of Taiwan, France and Switzerland. The positive trend highlighted by these statistics was also confirmed by a number of South Korean constructors of injection moulding machines (exports in this segment totalled 141 million euros in 2012, as opposed to 144 million in 2011 and 116 million in 2010) during the Koplas fair in Seoul on 12-15 March 2013.
One example is Woojin Plaimm (new name of Woojin Selex), which stated that last year it exported half of its newly produced injection moulding machines - main to Asian markets, but also to Mexico, where it has a branch - for a value of 120 million dollars. According to company management, Korean converters still make broad use of hydraulic machines, but a rapid transition is underway to hybrid models in virtue of their superior energy performance (albeit not comparable to fully electric machines, which are still too costly). The company supplies approximately one thousand hybrid machines a year (out of a total of 1,700) to the mobile telephone industry and states that almost all Samsung mobile phones are made with its hybrid injection moulding machines.
Hyundai Injection Machinery says it delivered 300 machines in 2012 and expects to up that figure to 400 this year, bringing in revenues of 35 million dollars. The top destination market is Malaysia, where 450 units have been sold so far. LS Mtron (2012 revenues of 20 million dollars) has confirmed that its principal export market is Southeast Asia, especially for high tonnage machines, which go to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia. However, its priority markets for 2013 are the United States, Turkey, Brazil and Russia.