According to the latest statistics released by the German Association of Machinery Manufacturers, in 2004, due to the strong global demand for investment goods, the output value of the world's machinery and equipment actually increased by 10% to 11,000 billion Euros. Europe, Asia and the Americas dominate the world's three major machinery and equipment market. Among them, the output value of European machinery and equipment accounted for 430 billion Euros. In 2004, the output value of machinery and equipment in Asia witnessed the fastest growth with a total output value of 335 billion Euros, significantly higher than that of the Americas (282 billion Euros). However, according to the ranking of country output, the United States is the world's largest producer of machinery and equipment with an annual output value of 240 billion Euros, far ahead of Japan (185 billion Euros), which is second in value. China continued to hold the fourth largest maker of machinery and equipment in the world with 77.0 billion Euros and further narrowed its gap with Germany (1.55 billion Euros), which ranks third. However, unlike European countries and Japan, the United States and China are mainly producing machinery for the domestic market.