Taipei, July 9 (CNA) Taiwan ranked as the sixth-largest machine tool maker in the world in 2010 in terms of production value, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said Saturday.

Citing data released by Gardner Publications Inc., a U.S.-based publisher of media on durable goods manufacturing, the DGBAS said output of Taiwan-made machine tools totaled US$3.8 billion (NT$109 billion) in 2010, up 67.8 percent from a year earlier.

China's production value of machine tools -- worth US$20 billion -- was the largest in the world last year, followed by Japan' s US$11.8 billion and Germany's US$9.7 billion, according to the data.

The top three producers accounted for 62.7 percent of the world's total output, which rose 21.2 percent from 2010 to US$66.3 billion, the data shows.

After the financial meltdown of 2008, the global machine tool sector got back on the road to recovery from the second half of 2009, the government agency said.

In 2010, Japan ranked as the world's largest machine tool exporter, selling US$7.8 billion-worth of products overseas, up 85.8 percent from the previous year, followed by Germany and Italy.

Taiwan was the fourth-largest machine tool exporter, shipping US$3 billion-worth of products abroad, up 72.1 percent year-on-year.