The good news is that, in 2023, the Italian industry linked to the production of capital goods set a new record in turnover, driven by exports that reached a level never touched before. On the other hand, 2024 will mark a slight setback, thus interrupting the positive trend recorded since 2021.
This is, in essence, what emerges from the surveys carried out by the Statistics Group of Federmacchine, the federation of capital goods manufacturers of which Acimall, the Confindustria association that – among other activities – publishes the magazine you are reading, is also a member.
According to preliminary 2023 figures, the turnover of the Italian industry in the sector grew to 56.9 billion euros, 2.8 percent more than in 2022. The overall result was determined by exports, which grew by 5.1 percent to 37.4 billion euros.
Deliveries on the domestic market stopped at €19.5 billion, or 1.5 percent less than the previous year, affected by the reduction in domestic consumption of machinery which, after years of great expansion, recorded a slight reduction, falling to €31.4 billion (minus 0.8 percent).
2024 looks more uncertain: turnover is expected to fall by 1.2 percent to 56.2 billion euros. The end result will be affected by the reduction in deliveries to Italian customers, down by 4.6 billion euros (18.6 billion euros). Exports, on the other hand, will remain more or less stationary at €37.6 billion (minus 0.6 percent).
“The Italian capital goods industry seems to have lost the post-pandemic momentum. After the record results recorded until 2022, 2023 – while still positive – showed the first signs of weakness in the Italian market, in the face of still lively activity on foreign markets,” commented Bruno Bettelli, president of Federmacchine.
“2024 opens for us with uncertainty in both the domestic and international markets. The geopolitical scenario of great instability, both on the European front and on the Middle East, only complicates things, producing an effect of partial freezing of demand for capital goods. Of course, the slowdown does not occur with the same timing or with the same intensity for all the sectors that are part of Federmacchine, but this trend is common to the entire world of capital goods.
For a sector such as machinery, which generates more than half of its turnover through exports, internationalization is fundamental. Beyond the initiatives of the individual associations on markets of specific interest, Federmacchine together with Confindustria and Sace, in collaboration with ICE-Agency, has scheduled, for the end of January in Ho Chi Minh City, an event to present the peculiarities of the sector in which institutions representing the two countries, Vietnamese and Italian users with branches and production sites in Vietnam will participate”.
“Looking at Italy,” continued the president of Federmacchine, “it is clear that the halving of the rate for the 4.0 tax credit for the purchase of new machinery, which fell to 20 percent in 2023, has had an impact on our sales, and it is equally clear that in these last months of the year customers have slowed down their investments while waiting to know what measures will be available in 2024.”
“All this leads us to say that it would probably be useful to provide for a series of structural measures, starting with the 4.0 tax credit for investments in new machinery. In this way, manufacturing companies could plan their purchases of production technology more calmly and over longer periods, freeing themselves from the deadlines linked to the annual budget law. On the other hand, we hope that, in the face of the current (substantial) inertia of the US Federal Reserve Bank and the European Central Bank, interest rates on money will start to fall as early as the first quarter of the coming year, so as to relieve users who intend to invest in new machinery.
We are also waiting to understand how the resources allocated to the Transition Plan 5.0 and financed by the Re-power EU fund can be used: the idea of linking incentives for the purchase of new machinery to the theme of green manufacturing and digitalization and providing measures for training is a good one. But it must be clear, from the first months of the new year, what the actual measures available to companies will be“.
Bettelli did not forget to mention the increasingly worrying issue of employment: “There is a clear problem of finding young resources, a serious issue that we discuss more and more frequently. From the young, qualified and motivated, we can draw interesting ideas for the development of our business both on a strategic and innovation level. The demographic decline together with the attraction exerted by foreign countries towards our brightest young people can aggravate, already starting from the next few years, an already complicated situation”. And he continued: “For us, human resources are the key with which to ensure the continuity of our business activity: for this reason, training incentive measures are very well received by companies operating in the field of technology. We need to invest in training and upskilling courses for employees already employed in the company, also in light of the challenges of innovation, not only digital, that await us in the near future”.
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