Strong export momentum for Italian manufacturing machine tool products

For Italy's machine tools, robots and automation equipment manufacturers, 2011 was a fruitful year for them; the Italian trade association Ucimu said: “All major economic sectors have achieved double-digit growth rates. The strong development momentum has weakened in early 2012, but the environment in the international market has been more volatile.” As reported by the Ucimu Association, the sales revenue of the Italian machine tool manufacturing industry in 2011 increased to 5.019 billion euros. Compared with the previous year, the growth rate was as high as 19.6%.

The main driving force for growth is the export of machine tool equipment. Exports increased by 29.3% to 3.367 billion euros. The largest customers of Italian machine tool equipment in the first eight months of 2011 were China, Germany, the United States, Brazil, France, India, Russia, Turkey, Poland and Spain. In 2012, it was still Germany and China that competed for the top two.

The countries with particularly high growth rates are Germany (62.9%, 228 million euros), the United States (99.4%, 170 million euros), Brazil (84.1%, 115 million euros), and France (23.2%). 105 million euros). Contrary to this growth trend, the export of machine tool equipment to China dropped by 0.4%, but the export volume of 240 million euros made China still ranked first, which is the largest market for Italian machine tools and automation equipment. In contrast, the Italian domestic market is very weak. Although the demand for machine tool equipment by Italian domestic companies increased by 11.9% in 2011, the total sales revenue was only 2.761 billion euros. Fortunately, the export of Italian machine tool equipment has increased by 10 percentage points each year since 2008, and it has increased by 67.1% in 2011. Mr. Giancarlo Losma, chairman of the Ucimu Association, said: “2011 was a year of recovery for Italy's machine tool equipment, robotics and automation equipment manufacturers. The achievement of positive results should be attributed to the development of exports, thanks to the international investment environment.”

Ucimu expects that 2012 will be a "slower growth" year. It is expected that the growth rate of machine tool equipment and automation systems will be 3.4%; it will reach 5.19 billion Euros.