Venice has its canals, Rome its Coliseum, Florence its heritage of art. But Italy now has a surprisingly emerging new signature market: a burgeoning machining sector.
Of the sights and sounds associated with the Italian specialty, the whirl and clickity-clack of industrial machinery might not rank nearly as high as art, fashion, cuisine, architecture or music. But that doesn't mean Italy's growing machinery sector is any less sophisticated.
Italy's engineering sector has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in the country, accounting for 18.7% of machinery produced in the European Union, ranking only behind the leader, Germany (33.5%), but ahead of France (10.5%) and the United Kingdom (10.4%), according to a Eurostat analysis.
"You have two identities: the national identity and then the customer perception," says Giancarlo Caimmi, commercial director for Nordmeccanica, an Italian coating and laminating equipment manufacturer. "There's a big difference between the two. But the reality is Italy has a long tradition of mechanical engineering and we're very proud of what we do."
Like many countries within the European Union, Italy’s manufacturing base has been hit hard over the past year. According to a recent report by Federmacchine, a federation which represents 12 Italian trade associations, that came as a result of dramatic drop-offs in domestic demand and, to a lesser extent, from abroad.
But while a host of industries struggled with drops in output, one significant bright spot, according to the report, was exports for machinery and equipment, which jumped 50.1 billion Euros.
"Italy has only 60 million people," says Alessandro Marcolin, sales manager at PAL s.r.l., an Italian manufacturer of particle boards and related material for the panel industry. "To be strong as an economy, we have no other choice, no?"
Italy has seen significant jumps outside the European Union, specifically in Russia (which jumped 6.9% in 2008), Africa (13.8%) and South America (16.5%).
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