Brisk Sales of Gardening Hand Tools in U.S. Market

According to gardening tool export data from Taiwan’s Directorate General of Customs for the first three quarters of 2009, the category other hand tools of a kind used in agriculture, horticulture or forestry was the strongest performer with exports totaling US$22,868,000. With regard to growth, other knives and cutting blades, for agricultural, horticultural or forestry machines was the fastest growing category. Growth in the second quarter of 2009 was 48.89% and 147.73% for the third quarter of the same year.

The category mechanical appliances for projecting, dispersing or spraying liquids or powders, agricultural or horticultural grew by 30.96% and 32.9% in the first and second quarters but declined by 15.84% in the third quarter. As for other hand tools of a kind used in agriculture, horticulture or forestry, this category declined in each of the first three quarters of the 2008. The decline in second quarter was the largest, reaching 23.63%.

With regard to sales region, we can see in Table 2 that the sales of the category other hand tools of a kind used in agriculture, horticulture or forestry to America totaled US$149,256,750 which exceeded all other countries. Sales to Australia and Germany ranked second and third place for this category. The category other knives and cutting blades, for agricultural, horticultural or forestry machines enjoyed its best performance in Europe with Germany, Holland and United Kingdom taking the top three spots. For the category mechanical appliances for projecting, dispersing or spraying liquids or powders, agricultural or horticultural, Vietnam ranked first, taking US$4,840,560 of Taiwan exports with Japan and Thailand following close behind.

【Table 1】Comparison of Taiwan Gardening Tool Exports for the First Three Quarters of 2009 and 2008