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Home > UNITED KINGDOM > Focus On
ITALIAN EARTHMOVING MACHINERY: A SECTOR IMMUNE TO CRISIS
Rome (Ign) -From the historical record to modern supremacy. Italy boasts an extremely unusual record in the sector of earthmoving machinery: the first mechanisation of processes related to building activity we know of is the work of the Italian Giovanni Fontana, who in 1420 designed a dredger with excavating arm, which is considered the forerunner of all automated machines of this type. But obviously the industry came much later, to be precise after the Second World War, following the development of state infrastructures. The manufacturers of farming machinery began to use their systems and technological know-how to produce bulldozers, excavators, diggers and, later in the 1970s and 80s, triads, skid steer loaders and mini-excavators. As things stand today, Italian industry is one of the most competitive in the world, and has production lines which cover the entire range of machinery requested by the market, from finished products to accessories.
Historically the sector saw decades of constant growth from 1948 up to the 1970s, driven by the period of industrial reconstruction and by increases in popular housing resulting from the baby boom years. This was followed by a slump which was interrupted in the second half of the 1980s, when Italian companies began to assemble competitive products also in the international field, thus triggering off recovery driven above all by exports. Today, the structure of the sector is made up above all of small and medium-size enterprises working mainly on accessories - which are then assembled abroad or in Italian consortiums - and of some major trans-national companies which produce both complete machines and components such as vehicle tracks, in whose production Italy is the world leader. The trade associations in the sector include Comamoter (which brings together around 60 companies); Unacoma (www.unacoma.it), the association of Italian earthmoving machinery manufacturers; as well as the Association of producers of tractors and farming machinery which is part of Confindustria.
The turnover in the sector in 2005 reached an overall value of € 3.370 bn, 8.8% up on the previous year. And in the first half of 2006 growth was confirmed by significant +8.2%. This trend began in 2003 and is due above all to the ability of Italian companies to sell abroad: Italian exports overall of earthmoving machinery, equipment, components and spare parts, involved 149 countries in the world in 2005, and rose from €1795 million in 2004 to €2040 million the following year, with an increase of 13.65%. And in fact the Italian trade balance in the sector shows a trade surplus of almost €1 billion, up 27% on the previous year, with a growth in volume of only 15%, an indicator of technological development which leads buyers to choose Italian products not on the basis of their highly competitive prices, but on the basis of higher quality.
Among the export markets, in 2005 Spain, Germany and Romania imported the largest quantities of Italian machinery. In terms of quotas, United States lead the pack with 9.5%, followed by Spain (9.3%) and France (9.1%). Moreover, Italy holds 20% of the market of Western Europe. The performance in the sector and its rate of growth and development are a demonstration of the driving role performed by the industry, with significant impacts on GDP and employment. But what is most evident is that earthmoving machinery represents a sector of excellence for the Italian economy.
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