Lamiera Shows An Industry In Fine Form, Despite European Economics - MP & P Article
Posted by Machines Italia Canada | 08 Jun 2012
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During a morning press conference, the extent of the success of Italian machine tool and metal forming companies during the past couple of years was laid out for us by Luigi Galdabini, VP of UCIMU – Sistemi per produrre, the trade association of Italian manufacturers of machine tools, robots, automation and auxiliary technologies.
“During 2011, all the figures showed a double digit increase in all indicators for volume, exports, and so one,” Galdabini explains. “Our production of machine tools rose in value to 4.8 billion Euros, which was an increase of 13.5 percent compared to the previous year. Exports saw an increase of 25 per cent, reaching approximately 3.3 billion Euros in value. This demonstrates that our industry is strongly oriented to exports, which accounts for almost 70 percent of our total production.”
Galdabini went on to say that the industry expects 2012 to continue to be a healthy growth year. In the first quarter thus far, the order books of manufacturers have shown a 15-20 per cent increase in the domestic market, and a 25 per cent hike in export orders compared with the same period in 2011.
As Galdabini notes, the metal forming sector performed even better than the general machine tool industry during 2011, experiencing a rise in exports of 26 percent.
The numbers are interesting to observe, with large increases in exports during 2011 to the U.S., Brazil and Mexico for machine tools in general. On the metal forming side, large gains were seen in exports to the U.S., Germany and Brazil, but a slight decline was seen in exports to China, although it continued to be the industry’s second-largest client (after Germany). Also interesting to observe is that, as its largest client, Germany still only accounted for 10 per cent of metal forming exports among the top 10 countries to which these companies export, which demonstrates a remarkably balanced trade profile.
Lamiera was a relatively healthy show, with 40,000 square metres of trade show exhibits and 451 companies taking part. A total of 18,192 visits were officially recorded, of which 787 were from abroad. So although Italy’s domestic market is experiencing difficult times, a thirst for new ideas and industry connections remain. Giancarlo Losma, President of UCIMU – Sistemi per produrre, noted that the numbers were a noteworthy increase compared to the last show, held in 2010.
