According to preliminary statistics at the end of 2008, the production of the Italian textile machinery industry fell by 18% compared with 2007, with a total output value of approximately 2.285 billion euros. The reduction in production affected both domestic and export sales in Italy.
Exports in 2007 were 2.151 billion euros, which decreased to 1.782 billion euros in 2008. There is currently no investment in the world’s major markets (China, India, Turkey). In 2008, Italy’s sales to a few countries increased (Brazil, Russia). Domestic demand for new machines in Italy fell by 20% year-on-year.
In terms of total orders, the order index (2000=100) in the second half of 2008 was only 28.4 points, a 52% decrease from the same period in 2007. The situation faced by the machine manufacturing industry in 2009 was even worse. In fact, the situation will not get better in the first half of 2009. Recent surveys show that the current difficulty faced by most manufacturing companies is credit crunch.
