UCIMU Forecasts Italian Machinery Industry to Grow 5.7% Next Year

UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE, the Association of Italian machine tool, robot and automation manufacturers, expects that the Italian machine tool, robot and automation manufacturing industry will grow at a rate of 5.7% in 2007 amid the positive trend of exports and recovery of the domestic market from 2005. In 2006, production is rising by 8.6% growth compared to that of 2005, reaching 4,680 million euros. Deliveries in the domestic market is registering a 4.8% increase for the first time after three consecutive weak years, at 2,035 million euros. Exports look more optimistic, with a projected growth by 11.7%, at 2,645 million euros. According to the data issued by ISTAT, the Italian statistics authority, the sales of Italian machine tools to China have grown strongly by nearly a half year-on-year during the first five months of 2006. As a result, China has become the first most important destination market of the Italian sector of machine tool, robot and automation. Among the emerging countries, export growths of Italian machines were impressive across South Korea (+248.9%), Poland (+92.7%), Russia (+62.1%), India (+35.8%) and Turkey (+4.5%). In the developed nations, increases were witnessed in the US (+11.9%), the UK (+47.7%) and Spain (+4.4%). Deliveries to France stood stable (+0.4%), while those to Germany is slowing down (-6.2%).