A partial recovery. Which is therefore not enough to recover the ground lost last year. The Italian manufacturers of textile machinery, gathered in the assembly of the Acimit trade association, confirm the decisive slowdown in production in 2020 due to the pandemic, but also lay the foundations for a relaunch of the sector by focusing in particular on new digital technologies.
The data, first of all. During 2020 the sector lost 22% in terms of production, a decline strongly influenced by the slowdown in exports, down by 21%. Export that is worth more than 80% of the 1.8 billion of production, output achieved by 300 companies that employ just under 13 thousand employees.
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«The almost total production stop observed between the first and second quarters weighed on last year’s decline – explains Acimit president Alessandro Zucchi – while the recovery in the second half of 2020 was partial. Travel restrictions also contributed negatively to the performance of the sector, which still do not allow our companies to fully seize the opportunities created by the recovery of the textile sector.In this first part of 2021, however, the economic situation appears to be improving both on foreign markets and in Italy “.
Growth confirmed both by Istat data relating to foreign trade and by the Acimit survey on order collection. In the first quarter of 2021, growth is 66%, the first increase after seven consecutive periods in the red, a robust leap that brings the absolute value to new highs and which, however, will have to find new confirmations in order to assess its sustainability.
«The resumption of trade fairs in presence, also in our sector – observes Zucchi – is the sign of a progressive return to normal business conditions. For many companies, however, the legacy left by the Covid-19 pandemic also has a positive aspect, with entrepreneurs in the sector feeling the urgency of a digital transformation of their company “.