The goal is to repeat 2007’s excellent performance on international markets: last year, Italian producers of machines and ovens for bread, biscuits, confectionery and pizza saw its exports increase by 12%, signalling a higher growth than was forecasted. And the trend should also be repeated in 2008, according to the forecasts of the sector’s association Assofoodtec (www.assofoodtec.it), as a result of orders from Eastern Europe. This healthy period should continue in particular for the ‘dry pasta’ sector, with a recovery in demand from Central and South America and Africa. The launch of innovative products, like ready made meals and new recipes for example, should at the same time help the niche of machinery for the production of ‘fresh pasta’, for which the positive trend is expected to continue. Finally, demand for machinery for ‘extruded foods’ will continue to grow in Western Europe and the Middle and Far East. Growth will be fair in Russia and the Americas, while markets will be stable in Western Europe.

Assofoodtec is an association for producers of machines, installations and equipment for the production, preparation and conservation of food. It is a highly internationalised Made in Italy sector whose most important area (it is worth 36% of the total) belongs to producers of equipment of for the milling industry, for the production of bread and oven products, pasta and extruded food. In 2007, the value of the whole sector’s production reached 1.65 billion euros, made up for the most part by exports, which brought in 1.1 billion. These figures place Italy in second place in Europe behind the Germans, as the research centre Anima points out (www.anima-it.com), the Italian confederation of companies of varied mechanics that Assofoodtec also oversees.

Assofoodtec also forecasts an increase in earnings of 4.7% and in exports of 7.6% in 2008, for the sector of Italian producers of machines and ovens for bread, biscuits and confectionery. Seeing that the latter are what boost development, from the second half of 2008 an initiative supporting internationalisation and promoted by Anima will start in order to help SMC to break into foreign markets. The new markets that offer the best prospects for this sector are those in Eastern Europe, in particular in Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and Kazhakstan. There are also important opportunities in the Middle East and Africa. In particular, the share of exports of the total turnover of suppliers of machines for pastries and extruded foods should rise by the end of 2008 to 86% (three points higher than last year), with a double figure increase in foreign sales (+10,4%) but half of what it was during the exceptional 2007 when exports increased by 23.9%. In 2007, there was a recovery in orders for dry pasta lines, coming mainly from Latin America and Africa and then from the Mediterranean basin, Russia and North America.