The first 2008 event for “Moda Italia”, the travelling stand-alone Italian fashion fair promoted by ICE (Italian Trade Commission) has just finished, with the 25^th edition being celebrated in Taiwan and the 32^nd in Japan. Yet there are already changes announced for the next event in July 2008. The objective in the Summer session of the fair will be to strengthen and widen the appeal of ‘Made in Italy’ products. “Moda Italia” has been running since 1992: it aims to promote Italian fashion in Italy and it covers clothes (for men, women and children), fashion accessories, leather goods and shoes. It has played a fundamental role in helping to consolidate the presence of fine and medium-to-high Italian fashion products in South East Asia, and continues to do so. Especially in Japan and Taiwan, prime export destinations for Italian producers of clothes and leather accessories.

For the next edition in July there are changes planned, to give new momentum to the show and enhance the items on show, extolling in detail the investments made by Italian companies in R&D, and the use of new materials, colours and designs. “Moda Italia” will be opened to delegations of buyers from neighbouring countries such as Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and Taiwan, while the show in Taipei will be scrapped. Local buyers will be invited to visit the show at the Tokyo event. The same formula was experimented successfully in January, with a delegation coming from Seoul.

“Moda Italia” has become a fixed appointment for Taiwanese and Japanese buyers, and is established as the only major Italian fashion show in the Far East. The figures confirm its success: there were over 100 Italian exhibitors from all manufacturing districts and around 4,000 visitors at the last edition, over 20 advertisements on local trade publications, 12,000 invitations distributed in Japan. The show takes place every six months in prestigious hotels: in January for the Autumn/Winter collection, and in July for the Spring/Summer collection.

The Italian textile-clothing-fashion sector should register a 3.3% growth in turnover in 2007 to 54.6 billion euros. It was predicted in mid-December by Paolo Zegna, President of Smi (the Italian textile and clothing federation), who has also announced that a Smi representative office will be opened soon in Shanghai. According to Mr. Zegna, exports are increasing by 5%, with volumes on the up towards Russia, China and also the European Union.

There have been further indicators of a positive trend for Italian exports in this sector: the halving of the trade balance deficit in November was primarily due to increase by over 10 billion euros of the surplus for manufactured goods, which has now reached 47 billion, as the minister for Foreign Trade Emma Bonino underlined. And there is a good chance that the surplus will hit the 50 billion mark by the end of 2007. “Appliances and machinery, textiles, clothing and shoes, furniture have been the pillars of this result”, said Minister Bonino.