Industrial Automation Magazine India

Italian Machine Tool Industry envisages a recovery in 2021

Published on : Tuesday 22-12-2020

After the collapse of 2020, the Italian Machine Tool, Robot and Automation Industry envisages a recovery already in 2021.

December 2020 – The pandemic that broke out almost one year ago strongly affected the results of the Italian industry of the sector, which registered double-digit decreases for all main economic indicators in 2020. However, the trend of the year 2021 should be completely different and, even if the ground lost over the last twelve months cannot be fully recovered, the forecasts are really positive.

This is in brief what was reported by Barbara Colombo, president of UCIMU-Sistemi Per Produrre, the Italian machine tools, robots and automation systems manufacturers' association, during the usual end-of-year press conference.

As highlighted by the preliminary year’s data processed by the Studies Dept & Business Culture of UCIMU-Sistemi Per Produrre, in 2020, production dropped to 4,970 million euro, showing a 23.7% fall compared with the previous year.

The outcome was due to the reduction in the deliveries by Italian manufacturers on the domestic market, decreased by 28.2% to 2,090 million euro, as well as to the negative trend of exports, fallen by 20% to 2,880 million euro.

Based on the ISTAT data processing by UCIMU, in the first nine months of the year (latest available survey), the export downturn of machine tools only was strong and generalised. The sales to the United States, first destination market for the Made in Italy products of the sector, went down to 229 million euro (-21.4%). The other main destination countries were Germany, 185 million euro (-31.2%); China, 162 million euro (-28.2%); France, 115 million euro (-34.3%) and Poland 92 million euro (-30.8%).

The health emergency had an even stronger impact on the domestic market. In 2020, machine tool, robot and automation consumption in Italy fell by 30.3% to 3,385 million euro, penalising both the deliveries of Italian manufacturers and imports, decreased by 33.4% to 1,295 million euro.

The significant reduction of domestic machine tool consumption determined an increase in the export/production ratio, changing from 55.3% in 2019 to 57.9% in 2020.

On the contrary, the year 2021 should have a completely different trend for the Italian machine tool, robot and automation manufacturing industry, bringing about a recovery of business activities.