Market Analysis Italy: Positive trend for the manufacturing industry

The Italian machine tool, robot and automation manufacturing industry closed the year 2016 registering a plus sign for a good part of the economic indicators in 2016. The production increased to €5,480m, recording a 5% upturn versus the previous year. They expect a further growth in 2017.

At the annual year-end press conference of Ucimu Sistemi per produrre, the Italian machine tool, robots, automation systems and ancillary products manufacturers' association, Ucimu President Massimo Carboniero illustrated a positive review of the year 2016. “Great work was carried out by the Government authorities. With the Industry 4.0 Plan, they created a concrete programme of industrial policy, capable of ensuring the competitiveness improvement of the Italian manufacturing industry,” he said.

A definitely positive trend was reported with regard to the deliveries by the Italian manufacturers in the domestic market, grown to €2,205m, i.e. 20.5% more compared with the previous year. On the other hand, export decreased, marking a -3.3% and reaching only €3,275m, due to the weakness experienced in some major destination markets of the Italian product offering.

Based on the Istat data processing by Ucimu, in the first nine months of the year (latest available survey), the main destination countries of the "Made in Italy" in the sector turned out to be Germany with 260m (-1%), US with 247m (-9.1%), China with 222m (-9.7%), France with 158m (+23.6%), Poland with 90m (+3.5%), Mexico with 76m (+37.1%), Spain with 75m (+8,5%); Turkey with 64m (-4.4%), UK with 58m (-33%), and Russia with 57m (-60%).

According to Ucimu, consumption showed a good trend thanks to a 10.1% increase, totalling €3,685m. It is the third consecutive year of double-digit growth, as a testimony to the recovery of the Italian market, which has finally started again to invest in production technologies.

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