EXPORTS STILL HOLDING for the Italian plastic and rubber processing machine industry

On the basis of ISTAT data regarding foreign trade in the first nine months of 2012, Assoco-maplast (Italian association in CONFINDUSTRIA including 165 manufacturers of Plastics and Rubber Processing Machinery and Moulds) forecasts for the entire year 2012 an outcome close the results for 2007 – the best year ever – with production on the order of 4.2 billion euros and exports worth more than 2.6 billion.

The Assocomaplast analysis points to substantial stability in sales abroad, which have strengthened their role as the mainstay of this industrial sector. Imports have recorded a modest increase of +2%, which is nevertheless impressive, given the prolonged crisis in the domestic market. Exports evidence an increase of roughly 9 percentage points which, while somewhat less bril-liant than the results of the previous quarters, is an encouraging sign for companies in the sector.

The same cannot be said for the much more negative results recorded in other seg-ments of the Italian machine tools industry. The results of the latest Assocomaplast survey show an increase in investment in exports for over a third of the member companies from the first to the second half of 2012. And a similar share of respondents expect revenues to in-crease in this second half of the year.
On the basis of the 2012-2011 variations, the balance of trade for the sector exceeded 1.41 billion euros, representing an increase of 11% with respect to the previous one.

An analysis of the export destinations for the sector reconfirms Europe in first place, with some 60% of the total and 11% above January-September 2011 levels. In detail, this increase is supported mainly by extra-EU markets, Russia in particular, which recorded +26% to bring it close to 100 million euros. And indeed, Assocomaplast and Italian manufacturers have been focussing their attention on Russia in this period, in view of the upcoming edition of the Interplastica fair (Moscow, 29 January–1 February 2013), which will witness the participation of over 50 Italian exhibitors in a collective exhibition space of approximately 1,100 sqm.

North America is next in rank, with a share of 18% and an increase of 14% with respect to one year ago. A strong upsurge in orders from the United States and Mexico played a major role in this performance. On the contrary, if we extend our gaze to South America, we note a drop-off of 12% in sup-plies to Brazilian converters, a downturn that was virtually inevitable given the sustained levels maintained in recent years.  Weaker signs are arriving from the other side of the globe: sales to the Far East rose by an average of 3%, but with large divergence of trend from one country to another, at least in the most important markets.

China, which absorbs half of Italian machines addressed to that geographical area, gained an extra 4% in value while India fell back. Supplies have also in-creased to Thailand and Indonesia. The Middle East, on the other hand, has shown a decrease of 18 percentage points, imputable first of all to supplies to Iran falling by half, clearly affected by the restrictive measures which became still more stringent during this year. Sales to Turkey are good.

Regarding Northern Africa, sales of Italian machines to Morocco and Egypt are declining, while Tunisia shows the opposite trend. The rest of the African continent shows decidedly more modest values, with the exception of South Africa, which acquired machines for a value of over 18 million euros (a third more than January-September 2011).

Details of foreign trade in the sector by type of machine are provided in the following table.