How the World Machine-Tool Survey Was Taken                                                                                                          

           These annual reports of world machine-tool production, trade, and consumption were started in 1965 by Anderson Ashburn for American Machinist magazine with reports from McGraw-Hill Publications Co.’s world news network. In later years, Joe Jablonowski , editor of the Metalworking Insiders’ Report newsletter, joined the project. Seven years ago, again using these editors in New York, Gardner Publications, Inc . (Cincinnati, Ohio) began annual preparation of the surveys for its publications and Web site.

The methodology has remained constant. Much of the information comes from official sources directly to Gardner’s research department. Some field reports are drawn from the newsletter’s correspondents. Coordination of the data collection is through Nancy Eigel-Miller , Gardner research manager in Cincinnati.

The revised data for 2001 as well as the estimated data for 2002 is sourced at government agencies or trade associations, and in the case of the fifteen national trade groups that are part of the western-European CECIMO consortium (Comité Européen de Coopération des Industries de la Machines-Outil), data-gathering is facilitated through CECIMO offices in Brussels.

The reliability of such sources varies somewhat from country to country. When it is necessary, the editors develop an estimate that is based on information from a number of sources, including import and export data from the country’s trading partners. When this is done, it is indicated by a “c” (for “circa”) next to the particular figure on the Producers table.

If there is no revision of 2001 data, it is left unrevised and marked with a “u,” that is, the same figures are used for 2002, except that they are converted to dollars at the 2002 rate.

Data are for metalcutting machines (codes 8456-8461 under the Harmonized Tariff System) and for metalforming machines (8462-8463) and are for complete machines only, not including parts or rebuilt machines.

All local-currency figures are translated into dollars at the average commercial rate as calculated by the International Monetary Fund. A table showing exchange rates used is presented at the bottom of this page.

Percentage changes discussed in the Country Reports are in the original local currency and are the true measure of a nation’s machine-tool industry. Year-to-year variations in exchange rates caused by inflation, etc., can distort those percentage changes somewhat after they are converted to dollars. For example, German production (Producers table) declined 17% when measured in euros; after conversion to dollars the value registered a loss of 13% in one year. Some countries, especially those in eastern Europe, report their production in U.S. dollars, and this is noted on the production table.

Information from the 29 countries represented here does not include all the machine-tool production in the world. Some producer trade groups do not respond to repeated requests for information about their local industries, and although they had been included in previous editions of this annual survey they have been removed from the present study. Please see the Country Reports section for contacts within some of these non-reporting countries.