Italian packaging machinery industry resumes growth
The Italian packaging machinery manufacturers strengthened its world leadership in 2016 with almost 2% growth in total turnover, according to the research department of the Italian national trade association Ucima.
The sector’s turnover is expected to exceed 6.3 billion euros compared to the 6.197 billion euros in 2015. The Italian market made a major contribution to this result with 10.4% growth to 1.318 billion euros, maintaining the upward trend in 2016 following the previous year’s 2% growth.
Enrico Aureli, chairman at Ucima, said: “We are very pleased with the performance of the Italian market, which for all companies remains an important testing ground for the technologies they have developed.
“We are also confident that this positive trend will continue next year, boosted in particular by the benefits provided by the industry 4.0 plan launched by the government and the minister for economic development Carlo Calenda, who once again demonstrated his attention to Italian manufacturing.”
Export sales performed less strongly, remaining stable (4.997 billion euros, down 0.1% on 2015). The slowdowns in three major regions, the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe, had a negative impact.
Based on the latest disaggregated data available for the first nine months of the year, there was a 7.6% contraction in the Middle East and Asia and a 4.5% decline in Eastern Europe. These downturns are mainly attributable to socioeconomic problems in a number of major markets, including: Turkey (-19.6%), China (-47.2%), Algeria (-18.3%) and Saudi Arabia (-11.5%). The Brazilian market is still stagnant with a further 38.5% contraction.
By contrast, the strong upturn in other important markets suggests that they have overcome the difficult economic situation, the best performances being in Indonesia (+23.8%) and Egypt (+15.2%). Mexico also reported a record performance with 35% growth over the first nine months of 2015.
“Orders fell in foreign markets in the final quarters and this will probably affect sales during the first six months of next year,” said Aureli. “On balance we are expecting the current year’s growth trend to be maintained.”
