US machine tool consumption picks up in the first quarter of 2010

Recently, the American Association of Manufacturing Technology (AMT) and the American Machine Tool Distributors Association (AMTDA) announced the latest statistics on the consumption of machine tools in the United States. In March 2010, US machine tool production was 1,400, an increase of nearly 46% from 959 in February. In March, the total consumption of US machine tools was 258 million US dollars, an increase of 58.1% over the previous month's 127 million US dollars, and an increase of 49.5% over March 2009's 172 million US dollars. From January to March 2010, the cumulative consumption of machine tools in the United States was 548 million US dollars, an increase of 33.7% over the same period in 2009. From the perspective of product categories, in March, the consumption of metal cutting machine tools in the United States was 234 million US dollars, an increase of 51.1% over the previous month, and an increase of 52.9% over the 153 million US dollars in March 2009. The consumption of metal forming and manufacturing machine tools was 23.76 million US dollars, a substantial increase of 188.6% from the previous month, and an increase of 22.7% from March 2009's 19.36 million US dollars. From January to March 2010, the consumption of metal cutting machine tools in the United States was 508.48 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 44.5%; the consumption of metal forming and manufacturing machine tools was 40.05 million US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 31.3%. Peter Borden, chairman of AMTDA, pointed out that the growth of machine tool orders in March further proved that the market is accelerating. The results are all the more encouraging considering that the increase in the data came at a time when bank lending was scarce and Congress did not provide more help for manufacturing development. Due to the current uncertainty in the world economy, the industry hopes that the government can take some measures to help.