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[June 2003]
ACIMAC Publishes 11th National Statistical Survey
ACIMAC's latest survey (covering 2002) of the Italian ceramic plant and machinery industry confirmed the negative forecasts made in December 2002, albeit with a smaller contraction than was expected six months ago. The sector closed 2002 with a total turnover of €1.4525 billion, €70.5 million less than in 2001 (a fall of 4.6%).
Machinery sales in the Italian market fell far less, from €489.8 million to €484 million (down 1.2%). Exports however showed a sharp fall, from €1.0332 billion to €968.5 million, a fall of 6.3%. The share of total turnover generated by exports remained stable at 66.7%.
The tile sector, accounting for the lion's share (81.3%) of turnover, contributed most to the sharp fall in total sales. Sales for tile manufacture dropped 5.7%, from €1.2516 billion to €1.1803 billion. Sales in Italy fell by 4.9% and export sales to the tile sector fell by 6.1%.
Supplies to the heavy clay sector grew marginally, from €156 million to €160 million, as did supplies for sanitaryware (€64.6 million to €66.6 million) and refractories more substantially (€7.8 million to €9.3 million). By contrast, there was a fall in sales of machinery for the tableware sector (from €35.5 million down to €29.8 million) and machinery for miscellaneous ceramic products (from €7.6 million down to €6.4 million). Taken together, the non-tile sectors are relatively small and have remained essentially stable over the past five years in absolute terms, in spite of sometimes significant percentage variations.
Although the EU remained the largest export area, sales fell sharply - by 26.4%. A major factor was a worsening market in the Spanish tile industry. The Middle East continued its progress, uninterrupted since 1999, to show another significant increase (35.9%) and becoming the second largest export market. A similar trend was shown by Eastern Europe - which has been on the up since 1997 - with sales up by 13.8% to €127.7 million.
A sharp downturn was experienced in Asia, with sales plummeting by 23%. The fall in sales was less serious in China, where it was only down 3.4% to €85.5 million. Likewise, South America continued to experience the negative trend begun in 2001, with sales down from €85.5 to €79.3 million. There was a continued recession in Latin America as well as downturn in Brazil, the largest market in the region and the world's fourth largest tile producer.
In other areas, exports to Africa were up an impressive 27% and the NAFTA area of North America showed an increase of 2.8%.
ACIMAC Chairman Franco Stefani commented: "We are most concerned about the level of profitability of companies due to falling sale prices in an increasingly competitive situation, both between Italian companies and from international competition.
"Given that recovery is not expected during the current year, our companies will have to find solutions to deal effectively with the current situation. I personally believe that we must take a two-pronged approach. On the one hand we must continue to offer the market increasingly innovative technological proposals as it would be a fatal mistake to abandon research and innovation at this stage. On the other hand, we must begin to accept the importance of the concentration process for our companies, as they are still too small to absorb the growing costs of research and monitoring of markets."
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ENDS