According to forecasts drawn up by Ucimu’s Centro Studi & Cultura di Impresa, production of machine tools, robots and automation is expected to grow by 10.9%, to EUR 5.7 billion. Exports, on the other hand, could reach 3.1 billion euro, 9.4% more than the previous year. Consumption will also grow by close to EUR 4 billion, or 10.9% more than in 2020. The liveliness of Italian demand will be a driving force for manufacturers’ deliveries, which are expected to grow to EUR 2.6 billion (+12.7%), and for imports, which are expected to stand at EUR 1.3 billion (+7.6%).

To understand the climate of confidence that has unfolded in these early months of the year, we can look at the order index for the first half of 2021. This figure shows the collection of orders on the domestic and foreign markets by Italian manufacturers. Given the production time of the machinery, the acquisition of these orders will be reasonably ‘calculated’ in the production-turnover of 2022. In the first half of 2021, the index increased by 88.2%. This was driven by the good feedback from manufacturers in both the domestic and foreign markets. In particular, domestic orders grew by 238% compared to the January-June 2020 period; foreign orders increased by 57.5% compared to H1 2020. These decidedly positive findings underline the climate of new-found confidence that Italian companies in the sector are increasingly noticing as the months go by. Having said that, the increases appear so decisive also because they compare with the period January-June 2020, which, in addition to the general reduction in activity due to the pandemic, includes a whole month (April) of a complete halt in activity due to the lockdown.