Machines Packaging: the average annual growth rate is contracting but Italy is doing great!

From the recent report “Packaging machines: value of global markets and forecasts 2018-2020” at its third edition, we learn that the packaging machinery sector has generated in 2017 a turnover of more than 41 billion € and has a forecast of average annual growth for the next three years estimated at 4.4% worldwide. In 2017 and the first few months of 2018, a number of circumstances were highlighted that will have a significant impact on the export performance of companies in the sector. The average growth rate, compared to previous estimates, has been slightly reduced and the events that have pushed the analysts of the Ucima-Mecs Study Centre to reformulate the rate are: the further persistence of scenarios of war risk and/or social and political instability in Turkey, Libya, Syria, Brazil and Venezuela, the debt crisis and consequent depreciation of the currency in Turkey, Brazil, Argentina; the continuation of the new Chinese economic policy in the direction of a lower dependence on imports with effects on world demand (eg. in Brazil), the still uncertain negotiation phase for the United Kingdom’s BREXIT; the new import duties constituted by the Trump administration and, finally, the persistent economic-financial crisis of the oil-exporting countries (Venezuela, Nigeria).

If the average annual growth rate in the world, while remaining positive, contracted slightly, Italy continues to great!

The final data for 2017 on the export flows of automatic packaging machines, analysed at the Ucima Study Centre, show a strong acceleration in Italian exports to all continents: in monetary terms, sales growth is more than 15 times greater than in Germany. Italian exports totaled +5.8 at a global level, equal to a growth of about 280 million Euros (against a stagnant growth, equal to only +0.3%, of Germany: in value, the increase in German exports is only 18 million Euros).

But a more detailed comparison shows Italy winning not only globally, but also on many continents: in the European Union, the main market, Italian exports grow by 3.1% (more than two percentage points more than Germany). Even in non-EU Europe, Italy is growing by more than 15%, 2.5 times more than Germany.

Also in Asia (Middle and Far East) Italy totals almost 3%, while German sales are down by more than nine percentage points. In North America, Italian companies grow by almost 17 percentage points, while German companies lose 5% of the turnover of the previous year.

The most vigorous growth, among all export destinations, concerns sales of Italian packaging machinery in Central and South America, where Germany is growing by 20% more, but on volumes that in 2017 are still more than 120 million Euros lower than Italian sales (+24.1% compared to +20.1% of Italian exports).

Italian sales in Africa and Oceania are the only ones to fall (-10.3%), compared to an equal growth in German exports (+11.3%). This allows Germany to exceed, albeit slightly, the highest Italian share (Italian sales in the area were equal, in 2016, to about 490 million euros, compared to 420 million in Germany).

So …let’s all support together, as far as we can, the Made in Italy production!